Tucson, AZ

Just got finished packing for the trip to Tucson for Passover. I should be asleep already, I have to be up in under 6 hours. Driving (or, riding in the car) with Brad, Staci, and Evan to LAX, and then a short flight to TUS.

The past few days, I've been playing a lot of online settlers at JSettlers, on the ladder at MyLeague. It's been a long time since I've played the game seriously, and I really suck at it right now. My record at the moment is 16-48 (the 16 should be a multiple of 3, so some people didn't report losses, and it should be 18-48). That means I've won 6 games, and lost 48. That's ... bad. A lot of the games I've been close, and needed a common number to get rolled to win, and we go for 12 rolls without it, and I lose. The RNG at JSettlers is more rigged than online poker. I won a game around a half hour ago, and stopped for the night. That win came after a 21 game losing streak. It was painful.

My company softball team started up again last night, and we won our first game of the season! I went 4-5, and the one out was made on a nice sliding catch at the foul line. My first hit, though, was a little silly. With two strikes on me, if I hit a foul ball, it's an out. I hit a stupid little popup between the catcher and the pitcher that neither could get to in the air, and when it hit the ground it looked like it was rolling foul, so they didn't touch it. It stayed fair, and I was safe at first. My other three hits were solid. The games go for 70 minutes or 7 innings, whichever is shorter. This game ended after three innings, with a final score of 24-16. We were the away team, and batted first. In the first two innings, we scored 5 and 6, and they scored 8 in both innings. In the top of the third, we batted around after we already had two outs, and ended up scoring 13 tuns. The other team got out 1-2-3 on 4 pitches. Two flyballs to left-center, and a popup to the pitcher. It's good to win.

Evan likes pinball:

I think there was something else I wanted to write about here too, but I can't remember and I need to go to sleep.

Tonight, it was all Evan. He (and his parents) were at the bowling alley watching most of the first two games.

It's my new high series, and dammit it shoulda been better. In the first two games I threw one bad ball each (the 8 counts), and the rest of the non-strikes were all ten pins in the pocket. Still, I'm absolutely thrilled with it, of course. I only won the sidepot for the last game. Someone beat me by 5 pins the second, and the first wasn't close. My team swept all four points. The third game I finished with ten strikes in a row, and we won by 3 pins.

Going into the night, I knew I needed a 715 series to get my average for the season up to 200 in this league. It's now 200.4. I can bring both Monday and Tuesday up to 200 with an 864 (4) and 617 series next time out.

Goodnight.

Post ripped from: http://bradpenner.blogspot.com/2007/03/i-need-your-vote.html

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=MULTIMEDIA09

As promised, The Asbury Park Press Battle of the Pet Photographers has begun! I need your help! I, like each of the other staff photographers, have two entries in the contest. Here's how it works: Over 2400 pet owners sent in photos of their beloved pets. Each photographer chose two to go out and make "professional" photographs of. Then, the public votes on which pet is their favorite. This is where you come in. For whatever reason, this is not an anonymous contest. Because of that, I can campaign for votes for my two pets. The two dogs that I photographed are named "Brodi," and "Brooklyn."

This is Brodi:

And this is Brooklyn:

They're both extremely friendly, and they need your help to take home the grand (and only) prize. That's right, there's just one winner, and 23 losers! Help us not be losers!

Go here: http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=MULTIMEDIA09 and cast your vote for either Brodi or Brooklyn! There are bragging rights (and cash!) at stake here!!

One more time, it's: http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=MULTIMEDIA09. We appreciate your support!

Joe Morgan wrote a "for dummies" book. Seems appropriate.

So, I signed up for mlb.tv because Cox is giving it to me for free. I have in the past tried to get it (and MLB gameday audio) to work in linux, without good results. I decided I'd try again now, and... success!

I deleted any trace of mplayer-plugin from my computer, and installed MediaPlayerConnectivity instead. Combined with mplayer (or totem, xine, vlc...), I can actually watch the games! It doesn't work exactly right, as the video doesn't get embedded in my browser window, but this actually works out better for me.

I'm now watching the Mets/Cardinals in spring training... nine days until opening day!

Also, wfan.com has changed their streaming setup, and it's now just a flash streaming application, so I can listen to WFAN in Linux, too!

Now if I could just get all of this to stream to my Pearl...

I guess I'm starting to get to the point now where I don't have to post or keep track of each one of these:

My team only took one point out of four.

The previous two days weren't bad, but weren't great. 829 (4) on Monday, and 589 Tuesday. In the Tuesday league, I needed a 606 to bring my average up to 200 for the season. Instead, I now need a 617 next week, which I can do.

A friend of mine sent me a link to this video the other day, and I just had to post it here.

I write software for a living, so I don't at all support piracy, but this thing is just hilarious. Rampant piracy still exists, and yet people still write new and more expensive (to produce) computer games. Anyway, it's worth a watch.

Also, it made me go dig up this old button that I was sure I still had:

I'm fairly sure I got that at PC EXPO 1990-something. Crazy.

(Though really, with how my internet connection's been, it's more like Cox -3, MLB 0)

Well, I made it to New Jersey (and back) this weekend, but it wasn't easy.

I got to the Santa Barbara airport around 5:30 for my 6:25 flight, checked in, went through security, and sat down. I checked the status of my flight from LA to Newark on my phone, and saw it was delayed an hour and a half from 10:10 to 11:40. No big deal. Not long afterwards, I get a call from Orbitz that my flight to LA is delayed until 7:23. Again, not a big deal, especially since the connection was delayed as well. Around 7, there's an announcement at the airport that the flight to LA is canceled because the plane that was supposed to take us can't land in Santa Barbara can't land because of the fog. It flew here from LA, circled, and then flew back. The next one was delayed until 11, and there was a decent chance it might canceled as well.

I decided the best thing to do was to skip that flight and drive to LA. It was around 7:15 when I left, and while you'd normally think that's plenty of time to drive 100 miles for an 11:40 flight, you never know what you'll get driving into LA. I've learned to make up time early in the trip when there's little traffic to plan for taking an hour to go 15 miles on the end. It was some of the best, and most fun, driving I've done in a long time. I was in the LAX parking lot waiting for the shuttle to the airport at a quarter to 9. As it turned out, I would have made my flight to NJ even if it hadn't been delayed.

Going through security, they found my $3 Swiss Army Knife from Amazon, which I had no idea was in my bag. I had the choice to either leave it with them, or check a bag. I decided to just leave it. Every airport the size of LAX should be required to have a USPS outside security in every terminal. Or at least a mailbox, and a machine to buy stamps, or something. Santa Barbara security hadn't noticed it. If they had, I would have just brought it back to my car there, and would still have it. In LA, though, it's a bus ride back to the car, and while I probably had the time for it, it wasn't worth it for something I can replace for $23.11 if I decide I really need another.

Anyway, I got on the plane, it took off at 11:40, got in around 8 AM, and both of my brothers met me at the airport. So far, so good. Saturday, I was looking at my itinerary for my return flight Sunday night. My return flight was through San Francisco. My car was in LA.

Oops.

I called United, and they said the earliest they could get me from Newark to LAX was a Monday morning flight at 7am that stopped in Denver and got in at 12:55 Monday. I also had the option of leaving Sunday night out of La Guardia (and my parents could have driven me there from my brother's place, as they were going to be driving past it on the way home anyway), but then I'd have had to leave sooner than I wanted. I had them book me on the Monday morning flight, and figured that would be it. Then, I tried to book a flight on united.com from EWR to LAX Monday morning, and it came back with an 8:15 AM direct flight that got in at 11:15. I called back, and they said there were no economy seats available, only first class. I asked if I could have that instead, and was told yes. I asked, three times, if there was any extra charge, and was told no.

I was sure something would go wrong, so I called back Sunday to confirm the flight. First problem, I was still booked on both the 7 AM and 8:15 AM flight. Second problem, I owed over $500 for the first class seat. I spoke to a supervisor, who said I couldn't have the first class seat, but somehow gave me an economy plus seat that wasn't available the night before. Annoying, but I really just wanted to get home. I also told him to cancel the earlier (but arriving later) flight, because I obviously wouldn't be flying out of Newark twice on Monday morning.

Monday morning I get to the airport, check in, and find out that I'm actually booked through all the way to Santa Barbara. Not a big deal, as I just don't use the second boarding pass, but thought it was a little funny. Also, Orbitz had been calling me all morning about all the flights. The flight to Denver was delayed, the flight to LA was on time. The flights from Denver to Santa Barbara, and LA to Santa Barbara, were both on time. I got into LAX at 11:15, got to my car at 10 to noon, and was at work by 2. For 3.5 hours, and then I went bowling, having been awake since around 2:30 AM local time, and having gotten about 4 hours of sleep.

Then I went home, and slept for 12 hours.