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.
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.
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.
I’m going to try to get in the habit of actually posting here once in a while. Nothing as ambitious as Shane’s 30 in 30, just… you know, actually writing something from time to time.
Tonight, I’m hopefully heading out to New Jersey, but the weather isn’t looking too good. JetBlue canceled most of their flights into the area because of a storm. As of the moment, United hasn’t canceled my flight yet. With any luck, they won’t.
Last night, I finally got sound working on my Windows desktop, and hooked up the line-out from that machine to the line-in on my Linux machine, so now I get sound from both machines out of the same speakers. It also let me record some music from a flash streaming audio app. Last month, I saw Bowling for Soup, and one of the opening bands for them was Melee. I bought their older CD, but the new one doesn’t come out for another couple of weeks (same day as GH2 for the Xbox 360, actually). They have three songs up in a flash player here, but I wanted them in a format I could take with me. I’m sure there’s probably some way to record streaming audio with a single PC, but this was a nice easy solution for me to do it. They’re now on my iPod. And yes, I’m actually buying the CD when it comes out (in fact, it’s pre-ordered at Amazon).
17 days until opening day.
Amazon one-click + prime is dangerous. This is so tempting. I haven’t ordered it… yet.
I really don’t have much of anything to say, as usual. Dammit. I need to come up with things to write about, and post more.
Now, back to BSG.
| Your current terror alert level is: |  |
There is no threat. Stop being so paranoid.
Edit: This image rules.
My plans for the weekend. Likely, very few of these will actually get done. And it’s a short list to begin with, plus a three day weekend. Damn laziness. And one of them involves playing a video game.
- Dive into BlackBerry programming. Try to write a SoftReset app for the Pearl, and also start working on my Poker Journal replacement.
- Actually start playing Zelda for the Wii. I’ve had it for over a week, and haven’t done anything past the herding goats.
- Return/replace a pair of jeans that are too small (even though they’re the same style and size as a pair that fits!) and maybe get a few more.
- Set up Frames on my new Palm Z22, and move all my data over from my Treo. List my old Treo(s) on eBay.
Yeah, that’s really it. Likely, what I’ll actually do is play Wii Sports and Guitar Hero II all weekend instead. And eat, and sleep. Maybe watch some TV.
|
All content Copyright © 2002-2009 Alan Penner Powered byWordPress, Penner Hosting and Superb Internet |
 penner42 |
Redistribution is permitted under the terms of this Creative Commons License |