Monday Night Football

OK, I think I'm finally done clearing off the digital camera. Behold, the pictures of Monday Night Football.

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When you start tailgating 5 hours before the game, you'd better bring cards. And beer.

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On our way to the stadium, we had to dodge a guy burning a Dallas jersey.

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On the way to our gate, there was a contest where you could win a cap by throwing a football through a hole. Christina walked away with one.

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And then there was the game. Sigh.

Visiting My Cousin

A couple of weeks ago, since I was in the UK on business, I went up to Sheffield (that's in South Yorkshire, which is in northern England) to see my cousin Diane. She had married Mark, an Englishman, in August, so I went to visit them.

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They have a very nice house.

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Isn't this a great window?

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Here are Mark, me and Diane.

Visit to the Boneyard

Today my parents, Christina and I went to visit the Boneyard, where the Air Force mothballs planes. According to our guide, there are $27 billion worth of planes there. Pretty cool.

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OK, here's my "picture of a stealth fighter" gag picture.

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Here's an A-10 "Warthog".

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After the tour, we went to the Pima Air & Space Museum. Here's Christina looking cute in a cockpit.

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The museum had Kennedy and Johnson's Air Force One available for touring. This, of course, is the Presidential Potty.

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Here are my parents in front of an SR-71 Blackbird. What a plane. Coast to coast in 68 minutes.

No Ad

Some of you may have noticed ads on the side of this weblog recently. I signed up with Google AdSense to put ads on the side of the page. When people clicked on the ads, I would get a commission. When my total reached $100, I would get paid. I decided to see what rate I was earning money, and judge how soon I'd get the first check. If it was in the far, far future, I would give up. If not, I'd hang in there and wait to collect the money.

I should mention that one of the terms of signing up is that you're not allowed to publicize how much money you're making. I'm going to break that condition right now. Why? According to their stats, nobody ever clicked on an ad. That's right, I earned $0.00. At this rate, it would take an infinite amount of time to earn $1, let alone $100.

So I'm taking the ads off. It was amusing to see what it thought was related, but I'm declaring this experiment a failure and moving on. The ads will gradually disappear as I get around to re-publishing pages without them.

How Few Remain

I recently started listening to books on CD in my car. The second one I worked through is How Few Remain, which is an alternate history novel based on the assumption that the South won the Civil War. First of all, I have a problem with the plausibility of the premise. I don't think one minor event (as in the book) could have changed the course of the war -- I think the industrial might of the North pre-determined the outcome. I was glad to see an essay in the book Alternate Gettysburgs from a professional historian which supported this point of view. Still, it's interesting to think "What If?" (Warning, spoilers follow.)

This book is set in 1881, just after the USA has finally elected another Republican president. The Confederate States of America decide to purchase two Mexican provinces from the "Empire of Mexico." (Lack of a strong USA has let French interference in Mexico persist.) The USA, fearful of a stronger CSA stretching to the Pacific, declares war. The book is the story of the war told by looks at various famous people (Abraham Lincoln, George Custer, Samuel Clemens, Stonewall Jackson, Jeb Stuart, Teddy Roosevelt and a few more).

It was definitely well-researched, and I found it all very plausible, except for the whole idea that the North wouldn't wipe the floor with the South. Then again, with the CSA having English and French allies, the balance is tipped against the USA. One thing I noticed is that the author takes a lot of care only to include things that would follow from the premise --- nothing too unexpected ever happens. This is good for the believability, but takes something away from the excitement in the novel. Also, some of the details can be a little bit mind-numbing. Yes, Germans would be puzzled by American idioms. No, that doesn't need to be mentioned every time it happens. These flaws, however, are less of an issue for a book-on-CD, when I also have my fellow motorists to entertain me.

In my view, the major flaw was the sex scenes. Having a guy affecting a 19th century way of talking read you descriptions of Sam Clemens, George Custer and Teddy Roosevelt doing the wild thing is not an experience I recommend to you. Thankfully, that only occurred three times in the entire 21-CD book.

I did worry a little bit about potential pro-South bias in the book. (They were the ones with slaves, which in my mind makes them the bad guys.) I don't think there was any --- the author (also, I must admit, a professional historian) was following the original idea to its logical conclusion. The book did end with the CSA "winning" --- they got to keep part of Mexico, and the Brits annexed part of Maine. But that just made me want to read the next book so I could hear the USA get revenge (I hope). "Remember...Maine!"

Opening Day

Well, hopefully this week of vacation will allow me to catch up on my weblog, including posting pictures I took earlier.

Here are some pictures from the Redskins' opening day victory over the Buccaneers. We had a good time getting ready, tailgating, and watching the game before I headed off to England.

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We managed to find an open seat next to us for Ben, who couldn't find anybody to take his other ticket. What happened to the traditional demand for Redskins tickets?

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This picture gives you a good idea of the view from our seats.

Casa Grande Again

Greetings from Arizona. We flew in last night and stayed with my Aunt Pam. Today, Christina and I drove to my parents, passing by Casa Grande Ruins National Monument. I had visited there in 2001, but Christina had never been there, so we stopped and looked around.

With my new digital camera, I can now upload pictures wherever I am (yeah, I know, welcome to the 21st century). So here's our visit in pictures.

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Sheffield Marriott

After my stay at the Hilton Puckrup Hall, I headed north to Sheffield, to visit my cousin and her husband. (They got married last month.) More on that later. Here are a couple of pictures of the hotel.



As you can see, it's another converted manor. The walk down the hallway was even longer. At one point, I had to drag my suitcase up the stairs and push past an oblivious wedding guest. The hotel was hosting two weddings that night, and I believe the next night, too. My cousin and her husband looked at this place, but it wasn't really the sort of intimate setting they were looking for.



My gold status with Marriott did me some good, as it got me upgraded to this "executive room" which was nice and big.

John's Adventures

My friend, John "George" Grayson, now has a weblog of his own.

Having a Blast

My father and his golfing partner took "low gross" at the MountainView Men’s Golf Association "5th Annual Member-Member Blast". Congratulations!

Hilton Puckrup Hall

The first hotel I stayed in last week was the Hilton Puckrup Hall in, or, well, near, Tewksbury. It's on a golf course, which would be nicer for me if I played golf. Still, it got me up to 34 Hilton nights for the year (36=gold). And it was a nice place to stay, though I still haven't found the ultimate place to stay in the area.

My room was towards the end of a very, very long corridor. A colleague who was even closer to the end would hum the "Get Smart" theme on the way to his room. I guess that's what you get when you build a hotel out of an old manor.

I used my new digital camera to take pictures of the view from the room.

This is a neat window:


And this is the golf hole I could see from the window:


And this is the room:

Mailing list.

I'm conducting an experiment. There are web pages that I check often to see if they're updated. It would be easier if those pages let me know when they were updated.

I suspect some of my readers are in the same situation. So I have created a Google Group that is supposed to e-mail you when I have a new posting. You are welcome to go there and try to sign up. I'd be interested to know if this works!

Wine Update: Less Heavy Wines Under $8

Since my last wine update we've tried five wines. Looking over the list, I've noticed all five are in the $7-$8 range, and all five are light or medium bodied. I've been making an attempt to identify enjoyable wines that can be paired with lighter foods. Also, I paid less for some of these wines -- I've been taking advantage of coupons.

2000 George Duboeuf Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir is supposed to be the wine that goes with everything. It's a little tricky to find one in a budget price range. Duboeuf is a well-known mass-market brand, so this seemed like a safe choice.

It was a decent, if not memorable, wine.

2002 Buffalo Grove Pinot Noir

This is the first wine I've bought off a tasting at Corridor Wine. I think usually they're pushing wines that they have some particular interest in selling. The week I bought this wine, the store managers hadn't received direction about which wines for tasting, so they picked out some of their favorites. I thought this was an enjoyable Pinot Noir. Christina was less impressed; I think she ranks this on par with the Duboeuf Pinot Noir.

2001 Don Sebastiani & Sons Smoking Loon Pinot Noir

We got this one since we liked the Syrah from the same winery. I think it ranks near the other Pinots -- enjoyable, but not a "must buy".

2001 George Duboeuf Chateau de Buffavent Beaujolais

Beaujolais is a well-known lighter, fruity wine, so I thought we'd give it a whirl. I had a nice half-bottle when I was in La Jolla. Duboeuf is primarily known for its Beaujolais. I think we'll try other Beaujolais, but not necessarily this variety.

2000 Montecillo Rioja Crianza

We had this tonight -- it was our first Spanish wine. We both enjoyed it; I think I'll pick up another Rioja soon.

Adios, Mario

The guy who used to cut my hair (who made a cameo appearance in this weblog 4 years ago) was apparently murdered last week. That's disturbing.

I found out earlier this year that he no longer worked at Bananas. I realized the only reason I continued to get my hair cut there was, in a sense, inertia -- it's annoying to work through several people who do a crappy job of cutting my hair to find someone who knows what they're doing. Mario, as goofy as he was, did a good job, but it was weird since I had no idea what he was saying half the time, and the other time he was ranting about the Cowboys or politics or something.

Anyway, I learned stuff from the obituary that I hadn't known -- he had retired, not just moved to another place. And he was 66 -- I would have guessed he was in his 50s, at most.

Some details were in the article only, I suspect, because it was written by a college student, who has yet to learn about not speaking ill of the recently departed...

"No one really liked him, but everyone knew who he was," Pruskowski said.

People have egged his home more than once, Miller said, and pumpkins were smashed in front of his house on Halloween.

"He got on people's nerves ... but he never had any serious altercations," she said.

Neighbors said they often saw Alonso walking his dog and telling people where they should park in the complex's parking lot. He had residents' cars towed, Miller said, and frequently pestered residents to keep their lawns clean.

Well, heck, that was Mario. He'd often wander away from cutting my hair to tell someone else how to live their life. It may be better to have an un-sanitized remembrance printed. It shows some of his character, and he certainly was a character.

Rest in peace, Mario.

Born in the USA

I've been enjoying watching the Olympics on TV this year, but I have to question the playing of the song "Born in the USA" after various American triumphs. US reputation abroad isn't too great these days; I don't think it's improved by playing a song with lyrics like,

So they put a rifle in my hand
Sent me off to a foreign land
To go and kill the yellow man

I'm going to assume that Greeks, and not the USOC, are behind this.

Santa Barbara Pictures

Well, I'm back, and I've downloaded the pictures from the digital camera. Not a lot of excitement. You can also reminisce with pictures from 2000 and 2003.

Here is a picture from my winery visits...



Here's a shot from the rump session...



Here's a picture I seem to take each year...the beach barbeque...



My hotel had a bunch of drinks named after defense contractors and other entities. It was interesting, but perhaps more interesting if I had the resolution to get the drinks corresponding to each contractor...

No Tri-Tip This Time

Last year I visited the Old Town Tavern to play NTN at lunchtime during this conference. I headed back there again today. I sat down and asked for a Coke and a menu. (Happily, I didn't even have to ask for an NTN board, as they were set up along the bar.) The bartender obliged with the Coke, but said that their cook had quit, so they didn't have any food.

Hmm. This looked like it was going to put a crimp in my NTN plans, but the bartender suggested that I could get take-out from the Chinese restaurant across the street and eat it at the bar. A little bit weird, but at least I got my NTN fix in.

Comments

I've enabled a feature to add comments to this weblog. I think it would be nice if this site were more interactive, but I will probably end up turning off this feature if I get no comments, or annoying comments from random people. (Annoying comments from people I know are expected, however.)

Wine Tastings

Today was our free afternoon for the conference, so I decided to head to a winery. What better way to get a souvenir, I thought, than to taste some wine at a winery, and then bring a bottle of my favorite back home?

I selected the Fess Parker Winery on the basis that it was relatively close to my hotel, and I had heard of it. Granted, I had heard of it mostly through the Fess Parker Doubletree Resort, which I couldn't afford to stay in, but I had definitely heard of it. I try to avoid "celebrity" wines, but I gave this one pass on the basis that I was a little bit unsure who Fess Parker was. (It turns out he's most famous for playing Davy Crockett.)

I tasted the wines, and they were OK. In particular, the Sauvingon Blanc managed to overcome my usual distaste for whites. But I figured I should do better than OK, so I left with my only souvenir as a glass with a coonskin cap logo on it. It was tempting to get an actual coonskin cap to replace the one I had as a boy, but I restrained myself.

Still in search of my California wine to bring home, I headed down the road to Firestone Vineyard. Again, the wine was OK, and I left with another souvenir glass. I also left with an admonition to try the wine at Curtis Winery. My souvenir Firestone winery would get me a free tasting at Curtis. I tried the reds there (to avoid getting too wine-d up to drive, I poured out a lot of the stuff I didn't like), but was unimpressed.

There was a recurring taste that put me off, and I wish I could name it, so I could find out how to avoid it in the future. Maybe it's a component of Santa Barbara county wines inherent in the soil? I don't know whether to call it licorice, plastic, chemical or what. I taste it in a number of wines at Corridor Wine, our local wine mega-store, where I go to weekly tastings.

Well, at least I have my two glasses.

Really Not In Santa Barbara...

Last year when I came out here for a conference, I was staying over half an hour away from the university as part of my quest to make 50 nights with Marriott, and the associated gold status. Well, I made the 50 nights, I have the gold status, but I couldn't get a room there to enjoy the status.

No matter. Gold status with Marriott was last year's goal. Hilton is this year's goal. Hilton requires 14 fewer nights, allows me to count 13 nights that Christina stayed, and counts free stays (2 nights so far this year). That puts me 29 nights closer without really trying. 21 to go -- of which I've had 11 already this year. So I'm staying at an Embassy Suites. Ironically, I pass the Marriott and drive 20 miles past to get to the Embassy Suites in Lompoc.

It's a nice enough drive, unless Avis has upgraded you with an Isuzu Rodeo without great shocks and you've generally overindulged the previous 24 hours (brats while tailgating before the football game the previous night, 4 hours of sleep, too much creamy pasta and free booze on the upgrade to first class from BWI to LAX, all-you-can-eat shrimp and salmon at the conference's opening reception... Not a pretty sight.

The hotel itself was nice, but as there are evening receptions for the conference each day, I don't plan to see too much of it. It's set up like a compound of villas around a pool and a garden. The "suite" is really spacious and comfortable. The cook-to-order breakfast was nice this morning. I'm booked into an Embassy Suites in New Jersey in October; it should be nice if I end up going to the associated conference.

Herb Scrambled Eggs

I noticed we had some eggs that are due to expire in a few days, so I decided to have scrambled eggs for dinner. I am a very recipe-dependent cook, so I turned to the Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook that Christina recently recommended. The very straightforward recipe has several variations; I chose the "cheese" and "herb" options (and cut the recipe in half). I changed two things -- one, I used olive oil, instead of butter (which I lacked). Two, I used American cheese. Why? Because Oma made it that way.

Oh, and as previously mentioned, I halved the recipe.

It turned out pretty well. Since I still have two days left on these eggs, I may make it again. I think I'd cut back on the oregano, or possibly use another spice, though -- it was a bit over-herbed.

The Black Cauldron

With Christina at Bread Loaf, I'm catching up on my TV watching.

I wanted to watch this movie when it first came out (1985). I had read the book on which it was based and really enjoyed it. Now, I don't remember too much of the book, except I'm pretty sure it was better than the movie. (I'm guessing in the book, the bad guy doesn't yell "Curse you!" to nobody in particular when being foiled.)

I gather that this was an attempt by Disney to do more serious cartoons. It's certainly somewhat darker than most of their fare from the time, but I guess a serious Disney cartoon is still pretty silly compared to, say, a good young adult fantasy novel.

2.5 stars.

Another Wine Update

I've heard another person expressing concern with the quantity of wine updates. All I can say is that I hope the non-wine related content (some of it contained within this very post!) is interesting enough.

2002 Monte Xanic Calixa Cabernet Sauvingon

We picked this bottle up in duty-free on our way back from our recent trip to Mexico. I was in favor of using some of our "leftover" pesos to pick up whatever good wine was available, regardless of country, but Christina successfully lobbied for a Mexican wine. I was fairly skeptical -- who has ever heard of Mexican wine? As it turned out, Calixa is Monte Xanic's "affordable" line -- most of their wine is much higher-end than we'd consider buying at this point.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable Cab.

2001 Hardys Nottage Hill Shiraz

I got this wine because of how much we enjoyed their other Shiraz (which I think is technically their "Stamp of Australia" label). This was $2 more (although it ended up being the same because of a coupon that probably shouldn't have applied), so I thought it might be even better. It was very enjoyable paired with some Chinese food, but I can't say it was better. Speaking of Chinese food, does anybody know any way in advance of knowing whether a dish is going to have broccoli in it? I lost about 1/2 the mass of my food to broccoli that I had to pick out.

2001 Pietro Barbera

We had avoided this bottle for a while -- we felt that since we had bought it we had learned more about wine, and wouldn't have bought such a "cheap" bottle of wine. We were pleasantly surprised. It was definitely a lot lighter than we were used to -- which is good, since we've tended to buy heavier wines that are better paired with heavier foods. Since we're trying to eat lighter, it seems like a good idea to find some lighter wines. It's harder because we don't really like whites, and whites go better with lighter food.

We kept this lesson in mind last Sunday night when we went out to Galileo for Christina's birthday. It was Restaurant Week, where they offered a three-course menu for a reduced price. I figured we could splurge on some wine. (Well, not totally splurge -- they had four-figure prices on some of the wines.) I ordered a Barbera-Merlot-something else blend, which looked interesting. They brought a different bottle of Barbera; they said they were out of what we ordered. They said this was a good wine at the same price, and the winemaker's son was working at the restaurant for a couple weeks, so we could give him a piece of our mind if we disagreed. It was a nice wine, but the whole experience was kind of odd -- I'd expect a nice restaurant to come back, apologize and ask us to make another selection, but maybe service slips during Restaurant Week. It was definitely a heavier Barbera than the "cheap" one we had had at home.

1998 Le Lodole "Super Tuscan"

I mentioned this bottle in an earlier post. It's the most expensive bottle we've tried in our wine drinking at home. It wasn't necessarily better than all of the less expensive bottles we've had, but I feel like we took less of a chance of getting a "clunker" by spending a little more (and choosing carefully).

2001 Don Sebastiani & Sons Smoking Loon Syrah

This wine featured in an incident we around the Grantham house refer to as "The Great Fire of London Broil". I was assisting Christina in making London Broil. One trick we've learned is to use the wine you're serving in the recipe to tie the food to the wine. Unfortunately, we didn't have the requisite time to marinate the steak, so instead of draining the marinade, we left it on the steak while cooking. Also unfortunately, our top rack lies a little closer to the heating element than is probably the case in more modern ovens. More alcohol on the food + closer to the heat = steak on fire. Fortunately, Christina was able to put out the fire with no real damage to the food.

The steak was delicious, and paired well with the Syrah. Christina enjoyed the Syrah perhaps a bit more than the Hardys Shiraz (Shiraz is Australian for "Syrah"); I probably prefered the Hardys. I'd say the Hardys was "fruitier" and the Smoking Loon was "earthier", and I prefer wines in the former category.

We have been discussing whether there's wines we'd like to keep on hand, or whether we want to keep getting new ones each time. I think we're going to stock a bottle or two of this along with a bottle or two of the Columbia Crest Semillon (since we have a hard time finding whites we'll drink) soon.

The Christina Gazette

Two different Christina weblog-related updates. First, she posts here about an unfortunate incident from last night. Second, I have added a number of her old e-mails from the road to her travel blog.

Tuscan Pepper Chicken

Christina got back from North Carolina last night after a weekend visiting her family. To celebrate, I made dinner. We've been trying to pair food with appropriate wine, so I decided to start out with the wine and pick a recipe based on that. This page was helpful. I matched the "Tuscan-style peppered chicken" (or more simply, Tuscan pepper chicken) with a Super-Tuscan instead of a Chianti.

You can see the Tuscan Pepper Chicken recipe here, or if you want what appears to be an unauthorized copy, you can look here or here.

It's a very simple recipe -- not a lot of ingredients, nothing particularly exotic. The most challenging part of the preparation was halving the chicken and removing the backbone. Next time, maybe I'll get a chicken where that's already been done.

Attention Cartoonists

Just because you like golf, or have a golf tournament named after one of your other comic strips, doesn't mean you have to put golf jokes in your comic strips. I mean, if you can't think up enough medieval kingdom jokes any more, maybe it's time to hang up the drafting pencil. If your joke doesn't fit the premise of your comic strip, leave it out. Thank you.

Now I remember why I usually don't read the Sunday comics any more.

Riding Giants

As I've noted previously, George has a habit of seeing one movie per year. This year, he selected Riding Giants, which he, Martin and I went to see last night at the Landmark Bethesda Row theater. Martin and George have a bit more familiarity with surfing (the subject of the movie) than I do, given that they have, well, surfed.

We walked into the theater just as the trailer for Maria, Full of Grace was playing. It's in Spanish, and it's about a 17-year-old from Colombia who is a drug courier. I'm really not sure what the expected audience overlap is between that and a surfing movie. That was followed by a trailer for Danny Deckchair, a movie about a guy who goes up in the air in lawn furniture. It seemed both better and worse than you'd think, if that makes any sense.

"Riding Giants" focused on the sport (pursuit?) of "big wave surfing". They said it often enough during them movie that it seemed to become one word -- bigwavesurfing. I eventually realized (remember, I'm the one not entirely familiar with surfing) that there were (at least) two types of surfing -- bigwavesurfing and "performance surfing," which was mentioned once, briefly. Bigwavesurfing centers around riding really big waves. "Riding Giants" covered the subject from the pioneers in the 1950s to the advent of "tow-in" surfing in the 1990s. The hardest part of surfing a big wave is catching it, and by towing the surfers in with a jet ski, they can ride much bigger waves than anyone ever imagined.

The part from the 1950s involved old home movies, and it was an interesting glimpse into a long-gone era of surfing -- evidently Gidget was soon to cause surfing to explode in popularity. The part from the 1990s started out technically interesting. But as you can imagine, catching bigger and bigger waves gets more and more dangerous as you wipe out, and the movie contained a lot of surfers ruminating on the Nature of Death and the Nature of Danger. That dragged a bit.

Martin commented that the director's previous effort, Dogtown and Z-Boys had the advantage that skateboarders don't risk their lives as much as surfers, so it was lower on the pretention scale. Afterwards, though, I remembered my visit to an exhibition of skateboarding photographs, which imposed a really highfalutin political ideology on skateboarding. So I guess you're never quite safe...

Mayan Madness

Christina and I went to the Mayan art exhibit at the National Gallery on Saturday. If you're interested in that, I recommend that you read her post on the subject.

After we saw the exhibit, she bought me Maya Madness, a game. On Sunday, the gaming crew used it as an opening game. It's a fairly straightforward game. Everybody gets a secret number. Then you play cards, ranging from +5 to -5, in an attempt to move the running "count" to your secret number. If you are the first to do it five times, you win. There are a few other types of cards that allow you to skip another player, reset the count to zero, or make the count negative (and reverse the order of play). I think the most suprising thing is that the count would end up in the negative twenties, despite the fact that all the target numbers were positive.

It's a pretty good game to start out, since there's not a lot of skill involved, and with the rule that the winner picks the next game, it gives everyone a more or less equal chance. It's also pretty quick.

Ben won that game, and selected for the next game Bohnanza, a game that I had picked up on Friday at Hobby Works. It's a card game based on collecting sets of bean cards and redeeming them for "gold". There are a few twists that help make it interesting -- you're forced to "plant" the beans in a limited number of spaces, so sometimes you have to throw away cards you want to plant other cards. Also, you're not allowed to rearrange your hand. You can avoid this by trading away cards. In the end, I finished 1 gold ahead of Ben and Doug, and 2 ahead of Paul. It was a very close game.

I selected Robo Rally for our next game, specifically Random Robo Rally. We ended up with only the Cannery Row board, six flags and the "Hidden Flags" variant. It was a very violent game -- Ben touched flag six a few phases before I would have lost my last robot. Paul got to flag five, and Doug to flag four. I had only recently touched the second flag, but got toasted trying to interfere with Ben's victory.

Ben selected the Buffy the Vampire Slayer game. It seemed like a good week for that, since George wasn't there, and he usually vetoes it. Let me summarize the game from my perspective. I controlled Oz and Xander. Oz ran over to the corner, failed to pick up the artifact, turned into a werewolf, attacked Adam (the main bad guy), then got killed. Xander ran over to the corner, failed to pick up the artifact about six times (in theory, these were 50/50 shots I was missing), finally picked up the artifact and found out that it was really lame. Using the artifact, I attempted to destroy the artifact, but I failed, despite having a 75/25 shot. Then Buffy died, and the game was over, leaving Ben (playing Evil), once again, the victor.

We played a couple of more games of Maya Madness to round out the evening.

Ring Tones

Here's something to amuse yourself (or keep you up way too late). Yahoo! has a site available where you can listen to various pop songs turned into cell phone ring tones. Now, this is not compatible with my cell phone, but my interest in this is tied to a morbid fascination with which songs sound awful. Also, with which artists have sold out to the ring tones. I suppose it's possible that the ring tone people don't have permission, and are just paying royalties to the song's writers. But then how do they use the artists' names?

The Clash's Rock The Casbah sounds suprisingly awful for such a great song. It turns out you're much better off with Should I Stay Or Should I Go. REM's The One I Love -- not so recognizable, but Stand is unmistakable.

And who could resist The Dreidel Song?

Random Robo Rally

Last Sunday, Ben, George and I played six games of Robo Rally in a time where we would usually only be able to play one or two. How did we do this?

In a large part, due to a random setup. We ordinarily devise a fairly complicated placement of flags to ensure a good game. This time, we just determined the starting positions randomly. It produced a greater variety of types of games. For example, knowing that the only flag is one or two turns away from the starting position results in a mad scramble.

With that in mind, I've written up Random Robo Rally Setup Guidelines to codify what we came up with. I'm hoping to circulate them for comments.

Wine Update

George recently complained that there was too much about wine in this blog. On the one hand, it's my blog, and I can write about whatever I want. On the other hand, it's nice to know someone is actually reading this thing, so I want to respond to reader feedback.

As a compromise, here's an summary of the last three wines we've tried.

2002 Torre Spina Valpolicella

I'm beginning to divide wine into various categories of quality. I think there's certain wineries that produce decent quality wine, nothing spectacular, but are easy to find, easy on the wallet and easy to drink. Torre Spina, I believe, is an Italian incarnation of this trend. The Valpolicella was nice enough, and I'd be willing to try other instances of this grape variety, but the Torre Spina was nothing special...I probably wouldn't get that particular one again.

2002 Chateau Ste Michelle Semillon

I got this wine because we had enjoyed the 1999 Columbia Crest Semillon. Christina didn't like it as much as the Columbia Crest; I thought it was OK. I find it hard to find a drinkable white; I'd put it in this category.

2002 Hardys Shiraz

I think Hardys falls into the category I mentioned earlier of high-quantity, low-cost wines that still are several steps above the Franzias of the world. We had this wine tonight with some steak and really enjoyed it. It was uncomplicated, but very fruity and very tasty. I'd definitely get this one again, but I might also look for some fancier Shirazes. (Is that the correct plural?)

Letter to the editor

My father had a letter to the editor published today in the Arizona Daily Star.

Here is the article he's responding to.

The Swiss Empire

Earlier this week, with Christina working late, I found myself playing a fair bit of Europa Universalis 2. This is a strategy game recreating European politics and wars from the early 15th century to the early 19th century. In honor of our recent trip to Switzerland, I decided to play, well, Switzerland. I admit to playing on the easiest level; my excuse is the game's historical fidelity is so good, it would otherwise be impossible to expand beyond the two "provinces" of Bern and Schwyz. Here is a look at our holdings in the early 18th century.



Here is a look at the larger European picture. The white blob to my east is the Austrian Empire, my continuing nemesis. I'm in a little bit of trouble because they're more technologically advanced than we are (but we have these marvelous knives!), and my main ally has been France (the blue blobs to the West), but they've been weakened by rebellions, and for some reason they're not too fond of me any more.

Why I Hate Comcast

We currently have cable modem service through Comcast. Recently the service has been fairly consistent, so my main annoyance has been the fact that they charge us $15/month extra for not subscribing to cable. So when I got a flier yesterday offering us "emergency" service for $4.95/month, this seemed (and was advertised as) a savings of $10/month. The only catch is that the promotional rate was only good through the end of the year.

So I thought I'd call them and find out how much it would go up. If it stayed under $15/month, I figured I was in good shape. After I called and asked about the promotion, the customer "service" representative asked me to fax her the flier because she was unfamiliar with the offer. I was flabbergasted. Wasn't there some sort of code on the offer that I could read off to her? No, she needed me to fax the flier. I probably could have done so, but on the principle of not encouraging their incompetence, I declined.

Now I remember why I don't have cable service from them.

ANTS pix

Someone went nuts with a digital camera at the conference I was at in Vermont earlier this month. They managed to capture me in a few pictures -- here are some of the clearer ones.

1. On the bus to the conference dinner
   
2. Waiting to board the dinner cruise
   
3. Grabbing some food on the cruise
   

Yosemite

My parents and Rudy just got back from a week in Yosemite. My father sent along this picture.

Where's Jon?

I noticed that the conference I went to in Switzerland last month posted pictures from the rump session and banquet. My vanity required I look through them to see if I was visible in any of them.

Can you spot me in any of these three pictures?

1. Rump Session 1
2. Rump Session 2
3. Banquet

Vermont Pictures

OK, I finally got around to downloading (and uploading) pictures from my Vermont trip.

We had Wednesday afternoon free for excursions. I decided to drive up the Champlain Islands, in the middle of Lake Champlain. I was motoring along when I surprised to come across a drawbridge.



The view on the drive was quite nice.



I drove to the northern end of the lake and took a left to get to New York State. I knew which road I wanted to be on, but I wasn't able to find that road -- just the truck detour for the road. Oh, well, I figured -- at least the truck detour would get me there. I drove along and came to a stop sign where the highway I was on ended on another road. I looked to my right and saw a big "Welcome to the United States" sign and a border guard. Uh-oh. I was wondering how I was going to explain myself, when I realized there were two lanes, one of which went past the border check, and the other of which I was about to turn into. To my right, there was a "Welcome to Canada" sign. I felt like I was in some sort of weird purgatory.

I drove through Lake Placid, which seemed over-touristed, to the Adirondack Park Agency Visitor Interpretive Center near Paul Smiths. I had a nice walk on the trail.



There was a path over a marsh.



And wildlife.



On the way back, I decided I didn't want to drive around the lake, so I took the ferry. There was a nice view of the sunset over New York.



On Thursday night, the conference dinner was a cruise, also on Lake Champlain.



Here are mathematicians enjoying the buffet.

Green Mountain State

Here I am in Vermont at a math conference, and I'm finally adding it to my list of states visited. It's more than just a checkmark on a list -- it's interesting to see how life here compares to elsewhere in the US.

Quaint. That's the word for it. Everything is so darn quaint around here. They seem to take their quaintness fairly seriously -- where they do have chain stores like the Ponderosa Steakhoue near my hotel, it's clear that local authorities have negotiated a tamer look for the signs. Anyone who has seen the new IKEA sign hovering over the Beltway in College Park can appreciate that.