Random Ramblings

It has been a bit since the last post so I'm not going to bother trying to tie this post together with any sort of theme or transitions.

First off - Go Democrats! Now don't screw it up!

A few messages to the media. First to Republican pundits - when your party was voted in you called it a mandate for Republicans to do whatever they want, but now that Democrats are in you are saying it is a call for reaching across the aisle - I say you had your chance, now fuck off and give us a chance to fix your mess. Second I am a little weary of stating that this vote was America's way of saying it is tired of the Iraq war. If the vote would have gone a little differently, let's admit it could have gone the other way and Iraq would still be a horrible tragedy and a large portion of America would still be pissed off about it. So let's say that the Iraq war is going horribly and needs a change of course because it is going horribly and badly needs a change of course, not because the election tended to one side in our two party system.

I guess this is what happens when I post after watching two episodes of the daily show and listen to the bill maher podcast.

As I am sure many have noticed, the governator held true to his promise of coming back. While there are some issues where I very much disagree with him I am somewhat glad to see someone people can get excited about running the place rather than someone who pretty much became a joke.

I voted by mail for the first time and it is awesome - well once you rescale based on the maximum excitement voting can be. It makes so much more sense since instead of standing in a booth trying to remember who to vote for and which proposition is which (and as was recently proven having a significantly higher probability of just picking the first name I see) and worrying about the line behind me, I sat in my living room (or whatever you want to call the non-bedroom in a one bedroom apartment) and used the internet to research each issue. Obviously my choices were not super well informed since I did not already know exactly how to vote, but it was a ton better than if I had just showed up at a polling place. For those who are a bit lost - California allows you to sign up for vote by mail which is basically absentee voting without being an absentee.

Ok, I got that off my chest now maybe something about me. Well the lack of posting is due to my two week trip to San Jose/San Francisco/Nappa Valley. Don't I have internet access there? Yeah, but for some reason I don't post when I'm up there, probably has something to do with having TV in the hotel rooms. I was up in San Jose to work with the company that tests the integrated circuit that I have been working on. It was quite a bit of work and I will censor many of my comments since this blog is on the internet and all. It was interesting to actually use a tester after having designed parts of testers. Although it was not a Teradyne tester we were using (nothing against Teradyne, it was just that the company I was working with already had a lot of experience with another tester). Luckily, my coworker decided to snap us out of eating at the same restaurants and staying at the same hotel that we have been spending tons of time in and arranged for us to stay in San Francisco. That was fun walking around the city and eating in China Town and North Beach (little Italy) and it didn't hurt to eat in the restaurant on the 46th floor of the hotel we were staying in. It also didn't hurt to trade in working all weekend to take a day to head up to Napa Valley to go wine tasting. We hit several well known wineries, although a lot of the wine actually did not strike me. And the last one we stopped at was willing to just keep pouring so we switch over from tasting to drinking. At Cakebread (where what I might spend on a bottle would buy a small glass of wine) they showed us around the wine making factory which was interesting especially since a lot of it actually looked a lot like the test floor where we were testing the chips. Maybe all industrial machinery just looks the same to me. Although I guess the test floor did not have $800 oak barrels (french oak - which is apparently far superior to american oak). But slowly getting around to the point, we were talking about my abilities as a bitter detector (thanks to Eric for naming my "ability") and the guy said I must like pinot noir - which is what I typically name as my favorite grape. His explanation is that it has thinner skin and thus less tannin (which is what makes wine acidic and bitter). This might also have something to do with me not being struck by much of the wine I had in Napa since they are known for different grapes.

Walking around San Francisco was interesting because it was enjoyable to be in a real city (sorry LA, but as much as I like you, you are a spread out mass of people, not a city) but at the same time I think growing up in Kansas did have an impact on me because when I thought about living there I missed my space and cleanliness and ease of driving places. Not saying I wouldn't mind finding myself living up there at some point, but that bit of Kansas impact was definitely there. Oh, and if you are ever looking for a great place for a crazy taxi ride, San Francisco could be the place. It has all the traffic of a big city combined with some very steep hills, definitely the place to pretend you are on a ride rather than in a car being driving by someone you have never met before. Although what was more freaky to me than the cab ride was looking up at a car that at least seemed to be at a 45 degree angle (yes I know it can't have actually been that steep) and knowing that my life depended both on the quality of their breaks and the person not getting distracted and letting up on the pedal for a moment.

Well I get a few days in San Clemente before heading off to KC for thanksgiving (as usual if you know where I live, I would appreciate it if you not rob me). It is interesting how easily I lose track of time when I spend the majority of my time traveling. It is almost as if the time I spend traveling is removed from my mental timeline so if something happened three weeks ago in SoCal I would think it just happened a few days ago. That's my odd way of saying that if I have been ignoring you it is like being offended that the guy near a blackhole hasn't returned your calls. Besides the fact he probably preoccupied by keeping himself from being stretched into spaghetti, to him it hasn't been that long.

I want to clear up some comments I have made about the movie serenity in the past. I often say some fairly negative things about it. But that is only because I do not think it lives up to the firefly tv series. I do actually like the movie and have watch it an absurd number of times (usually as a nice ending to watching the series again). Oh, and while I am on the topic, am I the only person who required multiple viewings of the firefly series before noticing that at the beginning of the first episode (during the battle of serenity) Mal kisses a cross (yes, I get the point of it, I had just never realized that they actually explain why he's so down on religion)? I also just noticed that all of the scenes in the opening are from the first episode?

Something interesting that I learned about myself (well, interesting to me) is that I remember stuff a lot better if I actually care about remembering it. I have often had a lot more trouble remembering day to day stuff than certain engineering/science related stuff and in both categories typically pale in comparison with others I met at MIT and in the general category I'm not sure how hot I line up against the general population. But the other day (see earlier comment about my messed up timeline - it really had to be 2 or 3 weeks ago) I was driving somewhere and reading some directions I had written down. And the third or fourth time I looked at the paper to get the same street name in about a one minute period I decided that was just too absurd (I'm not joking when I read directions I often forget the street name as soon as I'm done reading it). On the fourth or fifth time I said to myself, I'm going to remember it this time! And, I did. I think that all those other times I knew that the name was written down right next to me so I just didn't bother with remembering it. This is probably kind of obvious but it has definitely shifted how I try to remember stuff (as in I bother to care). Well, hopefully none of my ex-girlfriends are reading this or have made it this far into the post and are saying to themselves "damn it, all those times he forgot stuff it was cause he just didn't care". And if you are reading this, I'd say this is still in the hypothesis stage so lets not get too excited about it.

I just realized that I flew home on Thursday instead of Friday and have to go to work tomorrow so I better stop with the rambling. I just realized that this post is too long even for me to read back through so if you made it to this point - sorry about that (both the length and lack of proofreading).