I posted a picture a while ago of an eviscerated pigeon, I thought it was a cat that had done it. Jim Pantekoek pointed out that it looked like peregrine falcon kill, which I figure was way cooler. I'm now pretty sure it was a Cooper's Hawk. Kat spotted one around here a year ago and this weekend I spotted one 20 meters away from me on my neighbors lawn. When it took off it had a small bird in its claws. I watched it until it landed on a telephone post, then feathers flew everywhere. Yay for natural predators! Well, yay until it attempts to drag off my dog, then boo.

There was some unfortunate news on the motorcycle front, the battery died on the BMW. Dead, just like that. No warning. Happily I am still under the 'BMW roadside assistance plan' so I got a free tow to the dealership. It was just a truck with some gear on the back, pretty cool. Initially the mechanic was trying to explain to me that if I didn't have a trickle charger on the battery it may have died from lack of use. I then told him it was ridden five days a week, 35 miles a day, and there was no way I needed a trickle charger on it.

I guess I showed that I was annoyed with the battery dying, and kudos to the dealership, they comp'd the entire thing. So tow, battery and labor was all free. Well ... built in to the cost of the bike, so not really 'free'. That happened on Wednesday evening and Kat was forced to come save me in the car. I then drove the car in to work for two days. BORING. Luckily I had Kat's iPod which had Stewart Mclean's Tales from the Vinyl Cafe on it. That makes traffic so much more bearable.

I also talked some co-workers in to going body surfing before work last Friday, so I needed the car to carry the wetsuit, flippers and other junk. In the ocean by 7AM. It was surprisingly warm. I've attempted to put it on everyone's calendar, every Friday morning for the rest of the summer, we'll see how that goes.

This is going to be a busy weekend. We have a 'Murder Mystery' fund raiser for Moxie theatre this Friday. Kat has to play a successful actress (she wanted to be the oil barren) and I have to play her successful actor husband. Uh-oh. The husband thing I figure I can do, it's the successful actor bit that has me worried. I'm thinking my character just had a recent head injury and drinking problem, I can work with that. My motivation is going to be "Who are you people, and why am I here?". You know how hard it is going to be not to ask people what my motivation is? Must. Not. Speak.

Saturday is the 4th annual Testes Toss. I'd link the wikipedia entry for that but there doesn't seem to be one. Go figure. Oh, wait, one of the folks on my soccer team just got back to me with a wikipedia entry for Ladder Golf, looks like the alternate name is mentioned down at the bottom. I'll try to remember to take pictures so you can all enjoy it vicariously.

On a completely unrelated note, I saw an advertisement for the Nissan Cube on Hulu. Wow, that car is ugly. The part that truly struck me is it said "Professional driver, closed course" but I don't think that car goes anywhere that isn't computer graphic driven, and it surely isn't getting over 40 KPH.
Kat and I got new cell phones a week ago, I'm still working my way through it. So far it is pretty damn cool. One of the guys at work also picked up the same phone, he's doing far more with it then I am. For the geeks out there, he's set up his phone so he can SSH to it. How cool is that? I'll write more about it next time. The phone is the Palm Pre.

In discussions with some Indian co-workers it turns out that for some reason Americans don't shorten everything. They pointed out that some British terms are far shorter to say, but haven't been picked up here in the U.S.A. : apartment vs flat or elevator vs. lift.

The fact that nobody has picked up on those words goes against my theory, so I came up with a corollary: people have a 'invented here' bias for short words. Americans won't use slang that they didn't invent. No doubt I'll have more holes punched in my shortening theory, that is why it's called a theory.

Not really a surprise, yes Americans are getting fatter. Good to see Colorado holding out.

During the house warming party last week I found out that the house our friends bought came with a lawn mower for their four feet of lawn. Andy mentioned that he plans on never cutting it, so I volunteered to take the lawn mower off his hands (I'm nice that way). If you were wondering what the picture of the Smart car is doing on this post, that is a lawn mower in the back. It's amazing what you can fit in that car. The lawn mower was held in by a hammock and a bike lock, I get inventive at times.

Maverick had another I'm-not-a-guard-dog moment this week. As some of you may have heard before, the first time he heard our fire alarms go off he peed on the floor in fear. Any Lassie like "Little Timmy is down the well!" actions are not going to be forthcoming from him. He'd probably be more likely to be paralyzed with fear thinking "They're going to blame me!" and look guilty until Timmy's cries fade with exhaustion, then he'd furtively look around and slink away.

Kathleen was alone at home, and in the shower, when she heard a loud bang noise. A short time later Maverick forces his way in to the bathroom looking guilty and whining. Being alone in the house Kathleen's immediate thought was that somebody may have broken in to the house and Maverick was doing his "run to the alpha dog for security" bit. She wrapped herself in a towel and went out to investigate. She didn't finding anything, well, she did find a puddle of pee on the carpet downstairs. Maverick being true to form: Fear, pee, run behind somebody else.

I was on Salesforce training this week. Like most training I've had, a lot of it wasn't that useful. My department uses salesforce as a ticketing system to allow customers to open issues. The training was for potential contractors so it covered the sales and marketing capabilities of Salesforce. There were modules covering things that I've never cared about, and hopefully will never have to care about. I've never liked Sales/Marketing and even being tangentially exposed to them made me shudder. I hope I *never* have to do sales, I would so suck at it and I'd be unhappy the entire time. Just talking about 'leads' and 'converting leads' and 'opportunities' makes me uncomfortable.

I won't complain too much about the training because I didn't pay for it. If somebody else pays and 10% of the training is useful information I'm pretty happy. If I pay for it I want higher than 35% return. That means the information is 100% relevant and 35% new, or 70% relevant and 50% new or 40% relevant and 87% new. You math types can see where I'm going with that. This explains why I've paid for so little training. I've signed up for courses at work that are interesting in areas, like how humans perceive colours and light. Eventually that course went in to pretty heavy math regarding colour and image compression algorithms, but that is why I always carry my laptop with me, I just log back in to work while I'm sitting in the auditorium.

I have a training 'plan' at work that keeps track of all the courses I've been to, it must make for very confusing reading for HR.

I think I spent more time figuring out how to put padding around the images in this post then I did writing it. Luckily I'm a geek so I find that a good use of time.

Post Kat Arrival.

Kat is back in San Diego and all is well with the world. Her plane arrived early, but I was smart and checked the arrival on-line and showed up in plenty of time. I had a hell of time finding parking at the airport. I finally realized that if the massive Hummers are parking in the stripped 'do not park here' zones the Smart car surely should fit. It did.

While Kat was away I spent much money (in my head) redecorating. We shall see how much of that survives review by somebody with way better taste than myself. The couch still remains in the living room only because it won't fit in the back room without me ripping the legs off and I was wise enough not to do that. I'm still considering it, but more of a 'removal' than a 'rip'. I have to be careful with my verbs.

Why I get this urge to move everything around while Kat is gone is beyond my understanding.

I've unearthed the scooter from its dusty and unused state. The battery is dead but it started on the first kick this morning. I used it to drive around and check out furniture stores, which I love doing. Kat wasn't interested, so I was solo on the scooter.

So as part of the redecorating urge I'm looking for some shelves/storage that will go beside where the cat is fed. I had an image of some low white plastic cubes that would look cool, yet still not dominate the area. I swear I've seen them before, but I've had quite a time tracking them down. I finally found what I thought I was looking for at the container store (which is kind of odd) the Ladora style shelving. Sadly they are a little too high for what I was looking for, and the examples they had in the store didn't pass the Ikea test.

The Ikea test is something I came up with after buy lots of Ikea stuff, taking it home, building it, then realizing that it wasn't that stable (or just plain sucked). Now when I look at furniture I put my hand on the top and push down, then push left and right. If the furniture wobbles, it doesn't pass. If they can't build it stable in the store, it sure isn't going to be stable after I build it.

I also stopped off at the bookstore while I was scooting around and came out with two books, even though I have some already waiting for me to finish. The Road and a steampunk type novel The Affinity Bridge from an author I never heard of. If I've never heard of the author I read the first couple pages and see if I like the style, this one passed, I'll let you know. The Road was mentioned in an interview with one of the main game designers for Fallout Three, a game franchise that I've loved. He said most of the designers had read that book and it influenced the look and feel of the game. That's good enough for me!

Turns out there was a 'movie tie in' version of the book. I've hated those things ever since working in a book store, and from my conversations with the lady in the bookstore it looks like bookstore snobbishness is alive and well. I bought the original trade-paper version and, much to Kathleen's bemusement, scraped off the "Now a major motion picture!" sticker.

Kathleen finally had to come save me. The scooter decided that it didn't want to kick start, and after 20 minutes of trying it (in the increasing heat) I called Kat. While she was driving over I became increasingly inventive in ways to get the scooter started. It's a pain to do because you have to hold the front brake on for it to start (the left brake). You also need to put it up on the center stand to stabilize it, and hold the back rack so it doesn't tip over when you try to kick start it. This means you can't get a really good kick, and you can't apply any gas. By the time Kat showed up I had a bungee cord attached to the front brake to keep it depressed, a really good leverage on the kick, but I still couldn't reach the gas. When Kat showed up and ran the brake and gas for me it started no problem.

Now if it ever stops working again I know to get a random person to help me. The Americans were friendly as ever, with two guys wiling to lend advice such as "Is the key turned all the way?" and "That's good cardio". They may have been willing to help more than that, but we never got that far. We just gazed at the dead scooter in a manly way while I dripped sweat on it.

It's a strange thing, but if I take the scooter short distances I jump on with shorts and shirt, if I take the motorcycle short distances I feel like I have to put the full leathers on.

Some updates for those of you who were worried:
-- I have a new helmet now.
-- The dog has been groomed and is no longer toxic.
-- My best of Groove Armada came in the mail, groove time baby! So far four of the songs stand out: My Friend (the reason I bought the album), Chicago, Easy and If Everybody Looked the Same. It's a win. I think that link will work, it goes to Pandora.
-- The pigeons seem to have given up. Woo!

July 4th weekend report. I was lazy and didn't do anything interesting, well not on the 4th anyway. Friday I did go surfing with Kevin, Kevin and a friend of Kevin's, Kymri. I was going to bore people about the boards I used and Kevin Six's surfing style but I'm pretty damn sure nobody cares.

Suffice it to say Kevin Six is a surfing daemon. That man can turn and catch a wave before I can get out the sentence "Oooh, that one would have been good". He even was complimented by some 12yr olds: "Look at that old guy go!". There is a backhanded compliment if I ever heard one. Kevin missed the comment so we had to make sure he heard *all* about it when he got back.

Standard San Diego weather, sunny in North Park, overcast by the beach. We surf in the evening, drive back up to North Park, it's sunny again. Some times I think living by the beach may be overrated. San Diego is the first place I've lived in where they have to give three weather forecasts, oops, just checked and there are four: Coast, Inland, Mountains and Desert. The moto ride last week differed by 12 degrees Fahrenheit, the ride Kat and I did to Anza Borrego desert went from comfortable (coast) to cold (mountain) to overly hot (desert).



Went for another Moto ride Sunday. Took the PoS GPS with me. It froze twice (as you may be able to see from the picture). It's time for me to post on the Delorme forums and see if there is some fix for this thing. I cannot believe it is so sensitive. Some very nice twisties and I'm still trying to figure out how to ride them on the BMW. It likes higher RPMs, but on the very tight corners I come out of them too slow for 2nd and have to downshift to 1st. I know you are supposed to go in to the corner in the gear you need to be in when you come out, am I supposed to downshift to first *before* the corner? Seems very wrong.

Kathleen is probably wondering why I'm doing all this riding while she is away and not while she is here. It's all about the practice. I want to make sure I know what I'm doing before I go two up on some of these roads.

Kat is still in Canada, she's back in Ottawa until Wednesday. If you want your Kat fix, and who doesn't, you've a limited time to get it. By the time I post this she'll probably be back. Too slow. I heard a group of them went to the Earl of Sussex, some things don't change. When I go back I'll make sure to head to the Manx.

I finally finished the body wash that I bought in France, no more smelling like a European for me. No, I don't know what that means, so don't ask me. The reason I mentioned it is because now I'm back to a generic body wash (whose make I cannot remember) but it smells clean. Not people clean, just clean. Who figured out what 'clean' smells like? Does it differ between cultures? I'm pretty sure a North America 'clean' isn't the same as a Japanese 'clean'. Where would you go to figure that out? How cool would a museum of smells be? -- Okay, I've thought more about that, I wouldn't go to either. -- We also have a dishwashing liquid that smells like lavender, which is something I normally associate with flowers and people. It took a little getting used to.

So I smell like clean dishes and the dishes smell like sexy people. I'm telling you, me and the kitchen are happening.

I'm posting this from the coffee shop, and some of the news is old already. I'm writing the next post and using older one. Now you know all your news isn't fresh.

**********

From the sounds coming in my back window either somebody is having epic sex, or they're cutting wood with a very dull saw. For everyones sake I hope it's the former. That's not going to upset people is it? Oh well, too late.

On to more pleasant things. The dog stinks and the cat should be bald and fat.

I pet the dog when I got home. Now I have an incense stick lit and I've washed my hands. Ugh. I fail to understand how he manages to generate that much pong by just sitting around.

Also, considering how much I feed the cat, and how much hair I find around the house, how is she not bald and fat? She's skinny and furry. I don't understand it.

I'd like to complain about a part of the health system. I can't complain about the U.S. health system in terms of availability for high cost items, they've got that covered. Back when Kathleen had inner ear issues they sent her from the specialist *directly* to the MRI. No waiting, off you go. How long is he wait for an MRI in Canada?

However, standard complaint about doctors coming up, the way they treat their patients seems far more conducive to "more money" than "preventative maintenance". To my personal doctors defense, he did tell me to wait until he got back from vacation to talk about my blood test. He mentioned that it wouldn't be analyzed very well. Kudos to him. I got a phone call on Tuesday from the receptionist that said doctor X had looked at my blood work and "avoid trans fats and exercise five times a week". Wow. He forgot to say 'eat your vegetables'. What the hell was that? Standard answer number five? Hopefully my GP will give me more useful information. I would assume that 99.9% of the U.S.A. would benefit from "avoid trans fats and exercise five times a week". Bah, humbug.

My friend Jim Collis and I went for a nice motorcycle ride last weekend. Woke early, good ride, some mistakes were made. Near the end of the ride I mentioned to Jim that I was going to run out of gas in 42 miles (yay for trip computers!). Three miles after that Jim ran out of gas. Amusing, yes.

I came to a stop, turned off the motorcycle, took the helmet and gloves off, and checked back to make sure he was okay. So there I was sitting on the bike with gloves in my left hand and my helmet in my right, next thing I realize the motorcycle is starting to roll backwards down the side of the road. I can't use my front brake because i have my helmet in my right hand, I can't use my back brake because that needs my right foot and I'm using that for balance. Down I go. So much for the new motorcycle.

Happily there was very little damage done to the motorcycle that super glue didn't fix (just the turn signal) but my helmet took a beating. Now it doesn't have a faceplate any more and the place where it is supposed to connect is broken. I put the helmet and sun glasses back on and took the highway. It took all of five minutes for a large and juicy bug to hit my cheekbone and splatter in to my eye. I can report that bug juice in the eye at 70 MPH isn't dangerous, but it is pretty damn gross.

Happy Canada day to everyone back home! I'm sure you'll all be sending photos of the celebration. From phone calls I had it sounds like Ottawa was rain free for the fireworks, woot! Okay, back to my previously written post ;) By the way, no photos for this post. Kathleen took off to the Eastern Townships with the camera so all I have left is the old Canon Powershot that is ... wow ... nine years old now. I think my phone takes as good photos. Of course this thing lasted many a mountain bike crash and still works, that is *very* impressive.

I finally went in for my '40,000 mile checkup' as the doctor's assistant referred to it. That would be the post-40 doctor's checkup. When the secretary asked me why I was making an appointment I told her I'd just turned 40 and figured I should find out if I was going to die. She took it in stride, I'm sure she's heard it all before.

I always feel like I'm getting short shrift from doctors when I go to see them, because I'm not sick. We go through a litany of questions:
Feeling sick? No.
Out of breath? No.
Dizzy?No.
Nausea? No.
Diarrhea? No.
Breathing problems? No.
Muscle pain? No.
Blood pressure? Fine, I guess.
Exercise? Yes.
Liver or pancreas pain? No. Wait, how would I know if those hurt? I don't even know where they are.

As a friend of mine once pointed out, healthy people should only go see specialists. With the GPs you are probably one of the few healthy people they see, so to them you are a picture of health and that slight knee problem is nothing to worry about.

At least they took blood. I don't think I've had blood work done in two decades.

Change of topic.

I have come to realize that people are essentially lazy in their speech, they want to get their point across with the bare minimum of effort. The most obvious of this is the use of shortcuts in texting and instant messenger. Nobody wants to text out the word 'you', so you get U. Wait gets turned in to 'w8'. I'm still fighting the use of 'UT' for 'You there' and I still type out 'yes' for answers instead of simply using 'y'. Interestingly enough simply putting UT in an IM *implies* a question, so you don't even need to put the punctuation in!

I think if we get good enough at simplification in communication we may manage to get all the way to just grunting at each other. Think of the time we'll save!

Laziness / simplification works on spoken language as well. It used to bother me that people used 'Where you at?' instead of 'Where are you?' when they both have the same number of syllables, you aren't saving anything by speaking incorrectly. However, If you try to move your mouth as little as possible, and say both those sentences you will find that pesky 'are' word requires you to move your jaw far more than if you simply used the 'at'. The 'at' is an easy tongue movement and takes less energy, mystery solved.

This phenomenon also helps me explain why, even though I cannot do accents well, I can do a Southern States accent. I figure everyone can do a Southern accent. Why is that? Don't try to pronunciate and do the bare minimum effort with your jaw, lips and tongue. Ta-Dah, a Southern accent.

Which brings me to an area where I see effort going up, IT buzzwords. The latest one to be doing the rounds by the IT Architecture group is 'space'.
- We need to investigate the Web 2.0 space.
- I know somebody who works in the LDAP space.
- This is targeted at the Corporate Social Networking space.
Every one of those sentences can have the word 'space' removed, and it still makes sense (to those of you who know what LDAP stands for). Somehow this meme has managed to bulk up sentences, going against the shorter/smaller tide. Sadly it hasn't added value, it's the written equivalent of empty calories.

I was sent a copy of one of the IT Architect presentations on 'Social Networking in the Corporate Space' and there was some text in there that made me giggle every time I read it. I'll try and remember to put a copy in here.