Pluto. It's time to chime in. I think we're all grateful to the scientists for giving us a topic not related to war, Jon Benet, Britney, or Aruba. It has to be one of the few times that astronomers get the spotlight. No one really cares about new star sightings but take away Pluto's status as a planet and the world suddenly has something in common. The concern is amazing. You'd think that the orbiting rock had disappeared from known space. But Pluto is still there doing it's thing. I think that mainly involves spinning in space and status or no, Pluto goes on, its legacy ensured by its demotion. All the existing space toys can simply be remarked as: Solar System kit with bonus revolving Pluto! Textbooks can revise with a X over Pluto, and Disney's Pluto can rise in fame. 8 Planets. It seems a little empty, doesn't it?
Posts
I need to borrow a Stafford Terrier. A gopher has decided that the small patch of grass in my backyard is a perfect feeding ground. Now, while I never really planned to take care of the lawn, I did reserve the right to kill the grass myself. Each day the gopher dirt mounds get larger. What was once a nice flat surface has now turned into a mini sand dune like landscape. The cat next door has decided to ignore the gopher and she's a hunter. I might have to go back to my old condo and find the cat that used to leave me all the mouse guts. That cat would quickly take care of the problem for me!
If it wasn't for the random pictures of beer and the beach, most people would think I live in the Middle East for all that I blog about it. I live there in my virtual work world but I'm happy to say that I bought my ticket to Peru today. My next work trip includes 3 weeks in Russia before I make a side detour to Egypt, and next year's vacation is Aussie/NZ on a Star Trek cruise. Having said that, I have to post this article about women in Saudi Arabia. Unnoticed by most of the world, the women are standing up for themselves. Saudi clerics want curbs on women praying at Kaaba Reuters Riyadh: Saudi clerics want to impose restrictions on women praying at Islam's holiest shrine in Makkah. But women activists in Saudi Arabia say the idea is discriminatory and have vowed to oppose it. At present, women can pray in the immediate vicinity of the Kaaba. Plans by the all-male committee overseeing the holy sites would place women in a distant section of the mosque while men woul...
This morning the original bug was smashed into bits by someone's foot. A new smashed bug appeared on the wall. I got the automated response from the website saying the General Manager would look into the situation. I doubt it, if they GM cared in the first place there wouldn't be big dead bugs on the hall of the Executive Level. I'm glad I didn't see what the regular levels were like. I guess I'll go write them up on Trip Advisor now.
It's a bad photo. The camera phone couldn't do it justice. I'm too tired to check out of the hotel. I'm at the Four Points Sheraton in Fullerton, CA. I thought I would go to the restaurant but on my way down the hall, I saw this dead guy. I thought about bypassing it but I couldn't. I took the photo, showed the front desk clerk who couldn't care less. I'm still hungry but I'm not eating here. Already sent in the complaint letter to the website. Couldn't attach the photo but seeing as how the picture doesn't really show the true grossness, I guess the Sheraton people will have to accept my word that it sucks.
Okay the Shatner roast was a let down. It was so boring. Who were those random comics? I wanted to Tivo ahead to the good parts but there weren't any! I missed a new episode of Reno 911 for that! One last week of Finance and I hope to be done with math for good. Public Relations has started and it's so by the textbook that it's no wonder the blogs and buzz still have most PR professionals confused. I have now had ticketed flights for Russia and Cairo in my possession for 24 hours without a schedule change yet. It's a race against time to get the Russian Visa. You can't get the Visa without the actual flight and hotel reservation confirmation. I have the flight but the hotels in St. Petersburg don't have available rooms for my entire stay. My passport has gone to St. Louis, to Santa Barbara, where it now waits it's next journey to the Russian Embassy. All this and I have to have it back in my hands with the Visa by Sept. 1 or I can't get on the plane come...
Once in a great while, you learn something so new, that you wonder how you never knew of it before. Today I learned that there is such a thing as Paprika Vodka and that it's brewed in Budapest. Paprika Vodka can be drank straight up. There's no vodka taste and it goes right down. You have to like paprika though. Oddly drinkable. I also learned that my friends do a search for this blog with the words Here and There Blog and Beer. It always comes up first. Do the search alone without beer, nothing, do my screen name, nothing. Beer is the magic word. I hope you're all Tivo-ing the William Shatner roast. It's bound to be a good one!
When I took this picture in Barcelona of the chocolate Jesus, I was pretty much guilty of disrespect. The whole thing was too much for my mind to believe. I hadn't thought about it too much until today's headlines bring us a Virgin Mary in accidental chocolate. Enough is enough. There are cinnamon buns, bread, and other mysterious food images of the Virgin Mary. Pretty soon people will claim it's her image on the "face of Mars." I just want to reach out and smash that chocolate and end the hype. I see a falcon in the image. I guess I relate more to birds of prey than to religious icons. No surprise there.
You can learn a lot about a country just by taking a look at it's online newspapers. In the Seychelles, the paper is a short news feed. Today's headlines showed that the government is trying to be more active in attracting foreign investment from Indonesia and there are great rates to/from Kenya right now. The Botswana Gazette is updated weekly and has articles about waste company sabotage, condoms, diamonds will cost more, and a suspected child murder was found hanged. I couldn't easily find an English Icelandic newspaper so I settled for the news feed instead. It turns out that Iceland's interest rates have hit a new record in the inflation battle, Icelandair is stopping service to the British West Indies, and a bunch of stuff about soccer. In Rio de Janeiro, there is mention of today's top headlines of the crazy lady who cause the United Airlines flight to stop in Boston, Lebanon news, and JonBenet Ramsey murder arrest. I did learn that the former general of Para...
The days are starting to blur into a routine of work, school, and more school. I just finished 3 hours of homework and tomorrow night I can look forward to more of the same. If all goes as planned my month of no travel will end on Sept. 4th when I begin a long trip to St. Petersburg and Cairo. This is still subject to change but the travel will eventually happen. I've gotten as far as finding the flights, now I'm just waiting for the official go. Both of these trips are work related but I hope to finally make it to the Egyptian Museum this time. Sometimes it seems like the news stations don't know what to do if there's no war. There are plenty of bad things happening in Iraq. The elected president's office was hit by a suicide bomber today but it was largely ignored while the reporters waited for the Lebanon-Israel truce to end or a British Airways plane to explode in air. Let me wear my shoes and give me back my water bottle!
After a day of relaxation, I've spent most of today doing homework. As that can only keep my focus for so long, I decided to surf the net as I do the countdown to ceasefire along with Fox News. Someday I'd like to read the print version of a Syrian newspaper. Not much gets out about that country from their online Damascus News Agency. This headline caught my eye: President Assad Receives a Telephone Call from UN Secretary General. I clicked on the link and this was it - "Talks during the call dealt with the situation in Lebanon following the UN Security Council resolution and the cease-fire expected to be implemented over the next few hours." Okay then. Nice to know Assad is taking calls. There were more detailed news reports but they mainly focused on bashing Israel. Kuwait Times offered up this gem today: A 23-year-old Kuwaiti decided to drive his KD 13,000 German car after the tyres went flat. Unfortunately, this caused the car to catch fire. Though the driver es...
"Pretty Woman" with Julia Roberts has never been one of my favorite movies. An over the top Cinderalla story with Cinderella the beautiful hooker needing a rescue, it has always struck me as the most annoying movie ever. Every scene is contrived to make Julia Roberts just look such the Pretty Victim. But I rant. Today I learned that one aspect of that movie really can happen. It starts, as all good Saturday's do at Karl Strauss. Ms. Kitty and I had spent a good 4 hours scrapbooking and it was time for lunch and beer. Beer arrived and we both decided on Drunken Shrimp. Now it's hard to really put this in words. I had just finished taking a beer photo on my cell phone and sent it to Homer. I then turned my attention to carefully cutting my shrimp and had shoved a forkful of mashed potatoes in shrimp in my mouth. In other words, I was a happy eater. I was unaware of Ms. Kitty's silent struggle. The next thing I knew was that a sauce coated shrimp tail was flying past...
Be glad that you aren't in London. What a bummer for all of those passengers who had to spend the day and night outside the airport. Even more, no carry on allowed except for your passport and wallet. All cell phones, laptops, cameras, all the high theft items that the baggage handlers go after are now checked items for all flights that go through London. Note to self - fly through Germany and Amsterdam for the rest of the year. I am glad I'm not getting on a plane this week. Forget booking any 6:00 am flight. You'll have to get to the airport at 3:00 am to stand in line just to not miss the flight. In a way, I feel sorry for all of the CNN and Fox News reporters that are onsite in Lebanon and Israel. Their thunder has just been yanked out from under them as all focus goes to airline drama. War? What war? We have to cover the tragedy of no more lip gloss as a carry-on item.
I really do enjoy the Kuwait Times. Even though it is the most radical over the top paper bordering on tabloid, it always produces newsworthy gems like this. Chocolate ends hunger strike KUWAIT: A box of chocolates brought one prisoner's hunger strike to abrupt end. The hunger strike started when a police officer was not summoned to testify in a case about another officer stealing the prisoner's personal belongings. The prison director found out that the man's favourite food was chocolate, so he sent the prisoner a box of premium chocolates. Shortly thereafter the prisoner ended his three-day hunger strike.
When I go a day or two without blogging, it usually means that work has kept me busy. People always wonder what can keep me so busy when my office is in my home. Here's a snapshot of the last 48 hours. Monday: 6:45 am. I received a phone call from a broker in Cairo who wanted to know the process for setting up an account with a US sauce supplier. We worked through the key contacts and what needed to be done. Before and after that call, I was trying to get in touch with someone who could send me the Arabic labels for the same sauce because now we had 1500 cases at the warehouse, all of them needing the label. After assuring everyone that I would stay in touch throughout the day, I packed an overnight bag and started the drive to Carpinteria. I made it halfway there when the next call came in. This call was to let me know that the ice cream company that I had approved for Kuwait, had just gone out of business rather unexpectedly. Turns out that the city made a huge offer for the land...
First - HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Brad! It's been the best weekend in a long time. Minimal homework, no job-related work, and no home moving stuff to deal with. I've been to the beach and exercised both yesterday and today, and I have spent one full week in my own home. E-mail and phone connections are back in Lebanon today, so I was able to hear from people there. The bombing of the bridge in Jounieh and the northern road to Syria has really hurt people's ability to travel. What they find the most amazing in all of this is somehow the mail is getting through. I don't know if they're more surprised that people are trying to send mail or the fact that it's arriving. Even in normal operations the mail service is slow there, so go figure. Enjoy the Sunday!
I won. Persistence and determination pays off. It took repeated calls, explanations, and requests to move up the system. The phone charge has been dropped. Lesson for all - write down everyone's name that you talk to. Document the time you called, the time that the call was picked up, the length of the call, and the time you are on hold. Don't give up, don't let someone transfer you. Don't threaten to file complaints, just do it. Don't take no for an answer. Get the name and confirmation/id of the final resolution. Assume that a done deal isn't really done. Document and be prepared. It's a good thing that I have naturally low blood pressure.
More AT&T Hell
When you're on hold for an hour, you can get a lot done. After I filed my complaint with the CPUC, I then went to the AT&T website and pared down my complaint to 1000 characters to fit in their online format. Then I found the name of the CEO and the corporate address and decided to be the customer who writes the letter to the CEO. I've seen the results that happen when letters go to CEO's and they do get results. But as a Blogger, I can't just be satisifed with a print version, so here you go: August 4, 2006 Edward E. Whitacre, Jr. 175 E. Houston San Antonio, TX 78205 Dear Mr. Whitacre, AT&T has failed to comply with promised service and as a result, the unexpected unprofessional customer service has been a disappointment. I recently moved and wanted to resume my AT&T DSL service. When I called to start the service, I was told that it was available in my area, given a rate, and told that service would be activated by 5:00 pm on July 3, 2006. Since the DSL se...
AT&T Hell
I did something new today and filed a complaint against AT&T with the California Public Utilities commission. The compliant service is done in e-mail browser format, hence the funny wording. ....... Disupting bill of $74.32. AT&T service was sold specifically for a DSL line. The original rep sold phone service in conjunction with DSL. The activation date of July 3rd came and went and nothing happened. I left the country and on July 10, I still had no DSL or phone line. I called for service and was told that DSL was not available in my area. A service tech would need to come examine the line and see why there was no dial tone. I cancelled the service and told them not to bother with a tech because all I wanted was DSL and this is not available. On July 17, 2006 I received a final payment for $74.32. I called to dispute and I was told I was under contractual obligation to pay the bill. From my point of view, AT&T did not keep up their end of the contract since the rep at the...
Today was a mellow day. I don't know how it ended up that way because it took almost an hour to drive 12 miles today. I thought I'd get an early start and do some shopping before my dentist appointment but I ended up arriving just in time to sit my rear down in the chair and get the Novacaine injection in my mouth. I can handle a lot at the dentist's office but today the process of having gummy crap stuck in my mouth to make a mold was more than I could handle. I kept moving my mouth and the dentist would have to start over. He finally gave up and went low tech on the mold and that seemed to make all of us happy. I can handle the shot, deal with the grinding, and the pinching but don't stick a giant jello mold in there! Now I have 3 weeks before I get to repeat the process with the real thing. I have less than fond memories of the original crown process, I'm sure it hasn't improved much in the last decade. Then when one would think that the traffic would have ...
Weeds. You can't escape genetics. I have been programmed since birth to have an aversion to letting a weed escape my attention. At the condo, weeding was simple. I had a rock yard and the few weeds that made it thorugh were pulled right away. Now I have yard and after 4 weeks of neglect, the weeds have tried to assert their authority. I have spent the last two days fighting back. It's amazing how quickly they grow. In a matter of 5 hours, more had appeared. I couldn't let it go and now I have a patio full of dead weeds. When you weed, you learn how many bugs really live in your yard. If anyone ever needs worms, this is the place. Green worms in the grass, black worms in the dirt. They're everywhere. Ants live here too. I stepped in an ant hill today. That wasn't pleasant for me or the ants. I am now out of Round-Up and Ant Killer. They're at the top of my list for tomorrow's shopping. The worms can stay. The kitty next door surveys the damage I've infli...
More bombs, more deaths. I get the sense that people in Lebanon just want Israel to "get it over with" so they can rebuild and fix their country and their lives. People are still working as much as possible because when the war is over, the expectation will be to get right back to work. Work also keeps people occupied when they are stuck in one place for days on end. It's something to break the routine of sitting around waiting to get bombed. I expect the people in Haifa are doing the same. Just waiting for it to all be over so they can resume their lives and live without bombs. For me, my biggest decision relate to unpacking. Should I continue to work surrounded by boxes or not? Due to the lack of furniture, I think I'll choose the boxes. At least they give me a place to stack paper.