More Snow Pictures

Let It Snow

The first snow of the season is here, and this is the view out my back yard.

Westwood

I'm at a conference at UCLA right now. I'm enjoying this visit. The weather is quite nice. I realized on my way out here that I had never actually been to LA before. I had been through the area driving to and from Berkeley and San Diego. I had been to a football game in Pasadena. But this was my first visit to Los Angeles proper. (Disclaimer: I'm not 100% sure I'm in LA proper right now; I haven't checked municipal boundaries.)

Anyway, UCLA is located right on the edge of something called "Westwood Village". My hotel is on the other side.



I was mostly familiar with "Westwood" through the radio network Westwood One. But it turns out that it's a neighborhood of shops, restaurants and offices that's much more traditionally urban than I expected from Los Angeles. I mean, this is the land of the highway, right? But after getting off the 405, I found I didn't have a lot of need for the car. So it's mostly been sitting (at $18/day) in the hotel parking garage. Today, I got tired of walking, so tack on an additional $6 to park on campus.

Anyway, I head back tomorrow, but I just wanted to say that UCLA is definitely a cool place to be for a conference. Great weather, many restaurants within walking distance...what more could I ask for?

At Snowshoe

We had a fun 3-day trip to Snowshoe. Winter came late this year, so we only got one day to ski. But we made our own fun, and it was a nice opportunity to "get away from it all." I figure it was the first vacation from work I took that didn't involve somebody's wedding, or bunking at somebody's house.

Snowshoe as a resort was not exactly ready for visitors. The person who checked us in needed help to do so, the staff told conflicting stories about the availability of night skiing, the snack bar person had to ask for help ringing people up, a waitress was unfamiliar with the menu, the ski instructor didn't know what to do with our lesson tickets, etc. Each thing was minor, but it added up to an overall impression. Also, you'd think the lack of snow would lead them to arrange more activities, but the new aquatic center did not open until the day we left, and the comedy club opened up right after Christmas.

The snow itself they didn't have much control over. (Well, except for the fact that they made it, but they couldn't start until the week of our visit due to unseasonable temperatures.) As a result, they only had one trail top to bottom. (And one at the Silver Creek area, which we should have visited, but didn't.) After a few runs on the very crowded bunny slope, we headed to the top-to-bottom trail. Unfortunately, it was icy and not all beginner (green) terrain. More unfortunately, all the idiots on the mountain were zooming down it. (Not strictly true: some guy in a Jaguars jacket backed into me while we were in the lift line on the easy slope. Later, we saw him fall over trying to walk in the snack bar door.)

Here's something I realized: most people zooming down the mountain weren't good skiers. They just didn't know how to stop.

After a 2^nd discouraging run down the mountain, Christina and I decided we needed a lesson to bring our skills close to where they were last season. It was a pretty good two-hour long affair, but by the end we were exhausted. The night skiing question was moot. On my last run on the bunny slope, my goal was to exercise all my newly acquired technique, but I ended up as the recipient of a snowboard in the shin. So I skied the last half straight toward the lodge yelling, "Ow."

The two best things that Snowshoe did were Saturday night fireworks and dinner at the Junction. But the overall best thing about the trip was hanging out with friends and throwing our cares to the wind.

Merry Christmas from Arizona

Merry Christmas from my parents' house outside of Tucson. We had a nice day. We opened lots of presents, then we had a nice dinner with my Aunt Pam and Uncle Bill. Earl and Claudia were over for a while.

My trip out wasn't too bad. I got to the general vicinity of BWI slightly more than 2 hours before my flight was scheduled to depart. The BWI parking radio station advised me that satellite parking was closed, and I was to head to the BWI rail station for "overflow parking". The roadside signs, by contrast, pointed me towards the Gold Lot. I chose the Gold Lot. Oops. Gold Lot closed. So I turned around, parked at the rail lot and took the shuttle to the terminal.



For this trip, I forsook United, my airline of choice, for the less expensive flight on Northwest. I consoled myself by using most of my remaining Northwest frequent flier miles to upgrade the outbound portion of my trip to first class. This seemed an even better idea after I heard the horror stories of long waits at BWI -- at least I would be able to get in the first class line. I needn't have worried. There was one person in the regular check-in line, and none in the first class line.

So I had 1.5 hours to wait for my flight. As I lined up to take advantage of early first class boarding privleges, I attracted the attention of a security screener who thought I was in line for an extra search. Upon discovering that I wasn't, she selected me for a "random" search. I can't complain about being singled out; I just hope they also perform searches on people they have to walk a bit farther to get to. I know I have a right to a same-sex frisker, but she explained he had "wandered off" to another airline. Whatever. I'm not sure which gender would be more invasive, but it was a mild frisk in any case.

So I boarded the flight not with the early first class boarding, but with everybody else. As I settled into my seat, I noticed there was some unusual amount of to-ing and fro-ing with one or more of the passengers, but didn't take much notice of it as I started to nod off. After we had pulled away from the gate, the captain announced that a passenger had been removed from the plane after she had gotten "contraband" past security and assured us that all of her luggage had been removed from the plane. OK...

The rest of the trip proceeded without incident, unless you consider taking 45 minutes to get my luggage an "incident". Both the flight out of BWI and the connecting flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix landed ahead of schedule. I used the flights to finish reading Fellowship of the Ring, in preparation for seeing the movie.

Random Task

Well, I'm back from West Virginia, and what has happened in my absence? Nothing much, except...what the? Somebody tried to blow up a transatlantic flight?



Am I the only one who thought, paraphrasing Austin Powers, "Who tries to blow up a shoe? Honestly! You fight like a woman!"

Off to Snowshoe

Christina and I are heading off today to Snowshoe Mountain in West Virginia where we'll meet up with my fellow Georgia alum Margaret and her husband Derrell. It's supposed to be the best ski resort in the Mid-Atlantic. Only...there's not a lot of snow this year. So the slopes aren't open yet. They project opening some very limited terrain on Saturday, so I guess we'll get to enjoy that. And Snowshoe is supposed to be a lot of fun off the slopes, too, so...we'll see.

I did get to do some skiing last Thursday at Afton Alps, which is supposed to be one of the better ski areas in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area. They were also just getting into gear for the season, so it involved skiing over some barely covered grass at times, and through the snow-making equipment. Fortunately, it was a cheap experience. $15 got me a lift ticket, and another $15 procured rental equipment, with a free lesson thrown in. In keeping with their theme, the lesson was given by a 15-year-old.

No, I'm exaggerating. He wasn't that old. Still, I figured he could ski a lot better than me, and I tried to behave as I would have wanted someone to if I had taught them math at that age. He was a better teacher than I would have been, but then again I probably knew more about math at that age than he did about skiing, so let's call it a draw. His advice helped me get back into the swing of things for the season, and get the most out of the limited terrain -- let's face it, even with all the slopes open, the Twin Cities don't provide an excess of vertical distance to ski.

So as we head off, I ponder this story.

Federal authorities investigating anthrax attacks that have killed five people are examining the activities of a senior research scientist who was twice fired from a company that produces the deadly bacterium, ABC News reported on Wednesday.

Citing federal authorities, the network said the scientist, once employed at the Battelle Company, a secret anthrax-producing facility in Columbus, Ohio, made a threat to use anthrax in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Sounds promising, no? But somewhere out there Richard Jewell is saying, "Not so fast..."

Notes on the News

There are a few news stories that have caught my eye in recent days that I thought I'd say something about.

Americans Enjoying Balmy Weather

No I'm not. This AP article talks about this week's unseasonably warm temperatures. I'd just like to go on record as saying that what I dislike about winter isn't the cold temperatures (as long as my heat is working). It's the short days. The warm weather does nothing about that. I had hoped to offset the depressing sight of coming out of work to a darkened parking lot by the excitement of being able to go skiing. Not yet, at least.

September 11th Fund helps AIDS, arts groups

"A loan of $33,000 went to the Institute for the Development of Earth Awareness, a $25,000 loan to a modern dance group, Jennifer Muller, and a $6,000 grant for the arts group 3 Legged Dog."

"Another criticism of the fund is that it appears to be in no rush to give away the $337 million it has raised. To date it has given away $51 million, or 15 percent of what it raised.
The group said that it has no timetable for giving away the rest and that it will continue to evaluate requests and disburse the money based on what it sees as the needs of victims and their communities."
---CNN story

The "and their communities" part is a pretty big loophole, isn't it? Some of the victims were from my town; should we ask for a new playground set at the elementary school? I'm not saying that the money isn't going to worthy causes. Most, if not all, undoubtedly is. But when people gave money to this fund, I don't think that's where they expected it to go. To me, it's sort of sad, but you have to watch what charities, even the well-intentioned ones, do with your donations. Otherwise you may get a bad taste in your mouth at the end.

I got a little bit worried when they were collecting money and never gave an estimate of how much money they'd need. If there's "extra" money, I'd rather decide myself how to fund it. I thought about sending my tax "rebate" to Sept. 11th funds, but ended up splitting it between Habitat for Humanity and the DC Area Food Bank instead. I figure with the economic disruptions to the local tourist industry, they can use it.

Leaders of Divided Cyprus Move Toward a Settlement

That's cool. It sounds like the European Union is pushing the Greek and Turkish sides towards a settlement.
When I was there in '94, I bought a can of Coke, I decided I'd open up and drink when Cyprus was reunited. That's going to be one old Coke. Also, while my parents and I enjoyed seeing most of the south (Greek) part of the island, I decided there wasn't enough to see to merit a return trip...unless the north was opened. (You can take a separate trip there, but since nobody but Turkey recognizes the north as a separate country, that's a dodgy enterprise.)

There are a lot of obstacles to reunification. I'm not popping the tab on the Coke or booking flights just yet. But I'm glad to see they're making progress.

Ashcroft Defends Anti-Terrorism Steps

Hoo boy. What to say about Ashcroft's testimonty yesterday? When I first heard it, I felt it was outrageous enough to be included here for criticism. Fortunately, other people have already done so. I'll just quote them and add, "What a jerk."

"As someone who was actually prepared to listen to Attorney General John Ashcroft's defense of military tribunals and other security measures, I have to say that I was completely disgusted by his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday....the very worst of it was the way that the attorney general cast defenders of civil liberties as witting or unwitting traitors."
---Jacob Weisberg, Slate

Have some of Mr. Ashcroft's critics exaggerated the danger to liberty? Have they -- have we? -- been wrong in some judgments? You'd have to be awfully arrogant, or foolish, or both, to deny the possibility. But if American political history stands for one solitary point it is that democratic debate is good and makes the country stronger...Mr. Ashcroft may not like the criticism. But his job is to defend dissent, not to use the moral authority of his office to discourage people from participating in one of the most fundamental obligations of citizenship.
---The Washington Post

Theft

I wish I had something more pleasant to post, but the big news is that Christina's apartment got broken into yesterday. Sigh. What a world we live in.

Sanctimonious Frauds

I know disliking and demonizing the other team is part and parcel of any good rivalry, and I certainly still smart from a Michigan loss or two to Notre Dame. But the puffery Notre Dame boosters engage in is particularly galling and makes them more insufferable than other bastions of evil.


So I allowed myself a little schadenfreude to hear about the firing of Bob Davie, their football coach, a few days after I heard him say,

``It's not true. I believe in Notre Dame and its integrity and honesty. It might happen somewhere else, but not here. It's the first time I've been confronted with it. That story is not true.''

Let me emphasize this. Notre Dame has no more "integrity and honesty" than any other college football program. The main thing that makes it have less (since Lou Holtz left, anyway) is the pretension that it has more.

Think Notre Dame has trouble because academics matter so much there? Here is how much it factored in the decision to fire Bob Davie:

The players posted the two highest semester grade-point averages the past two semesters of any other team since the school started keeping track in 1990, and the team was honored by the American Football Coaches Association for having a 100 percent graduation rate last year.

As the Chicago Tribune's Rick Morrissey puts it:

Left to its own devices, the Irish Nation would ask for 4.0 grade-point averages and 4.3 speed, though not in that order, and on second thought, never mind the GPAs.

CR-V pictures

I posted some pictures of me with the CR-V that Christina took on Saturday for those of you who would like to see more detail than in the one above.

I Heard the News Today, Oh Boy

I have a certain amount of difficulty waking up in the morning. One of the ways I try to trick myself into getting up is by having the alarm on the TV go off. The idea is that I'll get absorbed in whatever news story is being reported and wake up while watching it. In recent months, that hasn't always worked. "Reports of another anthrax infection" is the sort of news story that makes me want to pull the covers over my head and go back to sleep.

This morning I woke to a reporter on Headline News saying something about people going to going to somebody's star on the Walk of Fame. Uh, oh, I thought, a celebrity has died. Then I heard the anchor say something about "Harrison" and I had a brief, but intense worry about Harrison Ford. Of course, I soon learned that former Beatle George Harrison had died. How sad. I was too young to understand the impact that John Lennon's death had on people (but enough of a news-watcher to wonder why it was pre-empting all other coverage), but I see the sadness here. I thought I remembered that he had denied having a relapse of cancer last summer, and I thought, "Well, guess that wasn't true." Of course, it was nobody else's business, so I feel he was entitled to say whatever he wanted, but then I looked it up and I was wrong.

"In July 2001, he released a statement asking fans not to worry about reports that he was still battling cancer."

Looks like I misinterpreted that. Now it makes sense; he just didn't want people to worry about him. And I find that very touching.

Very Interesting...

``It seems the attacker ... wanted to force through an increase in the budget for U.S. research on biological weapons.''

Here's an interesting article about who might be behind the anthrax attacks. I was floating a similar theory about a month or so ago. I mentioned it to Christina, and she sorta remembers it, but I unfortunately don't have any more corroboration.

New Car

Woo-hoo! I bought a new car. Details to follow.



(Mine's silver.)

Thanksgiving

I was going to post a summary of our Thanksgiving in North Carolina, but thankfully Christina did so today and saved me the trouble.

The World Has Changed

So I wake up this morning to the headline Japanese war effort sets sail. I know they're our allies. They surrendered to us 27 years before I was born. Maybe there are too many World War Two movies out there. But a little piece of me went, "Uh oh," before realizing this was a good thing. I think.



Anyway, I've been wondering a lot lately what headlines I'm going to wake up to. Part of me scans the news every morning for "Bin Laden's Body Found in Cave Rubble" or "Bastard Who Was Mailing Anthrax Found and Strung up By Thumbs." I mean, those have to be the top two, right? But I wonder. Anticipation is a tricky thing. The news lately turns out to be so different that what we expect. Sometimes for the worse..."94-year-old woman dies of anthrax". Sometimes for the better..."Taliban run screaming like little girls." So it's not that I'm pessimistic. I think there will be a day with a great headline. I just have to wonder if it'll be any less surprising than finding out that the Japanese navy is setting sail for a war zone again...

Liar, Liar Pants on Fire

So baseball is talking about getting rid of my beloved Twins. This is apalling on so many levels.

• First is the dismantling of the Twins. Sure, take the team of my childhood and rip them up without so much as a further thought. It's like the Mayflowers in the middle of the night moving the Colts out of Baltimore or the Browns going the other way. (Though that loss was just temporary.) And for what? Because the owner is tired of running the team and wants the cash to retire? The Twins are a decent team, and they've shown the ability to draw fans when the franchise doesn't put a joke of a team on the field.
  
  
• "There exists no prospective market . . . [for an] economically viable franchise for next season." Ahem. Looking around me, I see one. The nation's capital (or Northern Virginia, if they must) can easily support a team. As I heard someone point out, the idea that it would detract from Baltimore is a red herring. Hire an accountant. Figure out the value of the Orioles before and after. Pay Peter Angelos the difference, plus a bonus if he'll just shut up. It'll be a lot less that the $500 million they're talking about giving to the Twins and Expos to go away.
  
  
• The offer to expand other teams' rosters to make up for the jobs lost is a joke. It makes sense for a couple of hours (at least to me), then falls apart. If you play a numbers game, the total number of jobs goes up. But what ends up happening? You eliminate 8 starting non-pitcher jobs (9 if you have a designated hitter), and 4 or so pitchers who start on a regular basis. Even on a "small market" team like the Twins, that's a lot of million-dollar jobs. And you create 2 jobs per team at the end of the bench, where the guys are lucky to be earning $200K/year. Now, I don't have a lot of sympathy for the athletes, but it's appalling that the owners would present this as a "fair deal."
  
  

I could go on, but the point is that sports is supposed to be fun. If they get rid of the Twins, baseball will be about as much fun as watching Scrooge McDuck count his money. If so, good bye and good riddance from this Twins fan. I'd rather watch arena football.

Hail to the Redskins

I went to the Redskins game today and watched them beat the Seahawks 27-14. It was a lot of fun, especially since the Redskins dominated the game. George's uncle had an extra ticket, so I went with George, his uncle and some guys they know. George's uncle has had season tickets for 45 years. He said the first tickets he bought were $19.90 for a season's worth (6) tickets. He bought them with his paper money while he was in high school. People like him are why I don't hold out much hope of moving off the season ticket waiting list any time soon.

I took the digital camera Christina won in a radio station contest recently. I didn't get many opportunities for pictures, and not all of them turned out, but the above is from where we parked, and below is from our seats.

Trick or Treat

Well, the trick-or-treaters have come and gone for the evening. It could be my imagination, but I think there were fewer of them this year. Maybe everybody's just scared. As a result, I have much candy left over.

This year's crop of trick-or-treaters seemed nice enough. I'm generally too busy doling out the candy to judge the merits of the costumes, but I'm certain able to judge the kids' etiquette.

Here, for public edification is my list of trick-or-treating no-nos.
DON'T

• Just shove your treat bag at me wordlessly. It's called "trick-or-treating" for a reason. Say "trick-or-treat", accept the candy, say "thank you" and move on. I'm not a cafeteria employee or something. (And you should say "thank you" to them, too.)
  I did have a couple of kids tonight who not only didn't say anything, but they didn't even present their trick or treat bag. Poor kids; I think they were just shy.
  
  
  
  
• Try to grab the treats out of my bowl. I'm not naive enough to think that letting kids pick candy out themselves will result in anything but one kid taking half the bowl. So don't come up and try to grab it when I don't offer your choice. I had one kid who, dissatisfied with the Junior Mints I had given him along with his lollipop, put them back, started to grab for some Nerds while saying, "Can I trade..." I cut him off with "no", but let him keep the lollipop. Should have kept the Junior Mints, kid, you could have traded it for something. (Upon hearing this story, Christina chastised me for being "mean" to the kid. I countered I was just doling out valuable life lessons.) By the way, making candy requests is OK. ("Ooh, can I have a lollipop?")
  
  
• Collect for UNICEF. It's trick-or-treat, not trick-or-money. Didn't get any of those, but I'm just warning you.
  
  
• Go door-to-door without a costume. Apparently this is a cool thing to do for the junior high school set. Ooh, I can get candy without having to degrade myself by dressing up. Well, guess what kids, dressing up is fun, and you're missing out by going as "kid in a sweatshirt."
  
  

That's about all I have to complain about for now. Have fun, and don't get sick on all that candy.

Hail to the Victors

Yep, I'm still here, just haven't felt a lot like posting. Partially, not travelling around has left me feeling like I have a lot of time to finish my tale of my trip to Britain. I will finish that story eventually, but since I took a trip of a different sort yesterday, I thought I'd talk about that now.

I got the opportunity to buy some tickets to the Michigan-Penn State game from the UM club of Washington, DC. So I invited Christina, arranged to have Teddy walked in the evening, and headed out to State College, PA.

State College is, according to Yahoo! Maps, about 4 hours away from Christina's in Laurel. (For those of you who are interested in such stuff we took I-95 to I-695 to I-83 to US-322.) In reality, the trip was no more than three-and-a-half hours, which got us there around 2. The trip was mostly uneventful, but for a while I was worried because I hadn't double-checked that the game really started at 3:30, and not earlier. Fortunately, Christina was able to check the Washington Post sports section and confirm what my single-checking had indicated. The leaves were starting to change color on the drive. That was pretty. And for those of you who are interested in this stuff, Pennsylvania has now re-numbered its road exits to correspond to mile markers. Thank goodness! Georgia switched a few years back, and it was about time.

We had plenty of time to walk almost all the way around the stadium looking for our section, wait patiently to get in, find our seats, and get some mediocre hot dogs. Our concession bill came to a reasonable $10.50. Not wanting a lot of bills in change, I gave the guy $21. This mental arithmetic stumped him. Sigh.

The game itself was a lot of fun. We waited to sing the national anthem, because we were told ABC was now airing it live. After that, and some firing up from the Michigan travel band, which was seated nearby, the kickoff began. Michigan performed well on offense, at least until it was time to score touchdowns. They failed to convert on a fourth down early in the game, and then settled for a couple of field goals to lead 6-0 late in the half.



But with the clock running low, Michigan managed to put together an 80-yard-drive to take a 13-0 lead going into halftime. The halftime show appeared to be some sort of salute to "My Fair Lady", so I headed for the restrooms. Let me tell you, I have not seen a worse laid-out stadium in my lifetime. One direction there was a crush of people leading the stands, the other direction was practically empty. I took the other direction and looped around. I thought I was home free when I saw the restrooms, but that was the women's restroom. The men's was on the other side of a snack bar. Who puts the snack bar in the middle of the restroom area? Men headed for the restroom pushed by the snack lines to reach the bathroom. By the time I was making it back to my seats 20 minutes later, Michigan was finishing off another touchdown drive that was to provide the last points of the game.

The rest of the game was still fun. The fans tried to interfere with each other's cheers. Michigan fans would cheer "Go Blue" and the PSU fans would add "And White!" (Though there soon stopped being enough PSU fans around to be heard.) Penn State fans would start the "We Are...Penn State" cheer with "We Are..." and Michigan fans would supply "0-3". Late in the game, I yelled "0-4" and got a bunch of people converted over to that. Also, when they announced the scores of other games, I yelled "What about Slippery Rock?" (At UM games, it was a tradition to announce the Slippery Rock score, and cheer SRU. I, of course, didn't know any of the other Michigan fans, but it was nice to share an "in joke" with them.)

The game was soon over, and Penn State had been shut out at home for the first time since 1965. I felt sorry for them, and for Joe Paterno, their coach. He entered this season needing only one win to tie Bear Bryant as college football's winningest coach, and he may not get it. Still, I was glad to see a Wolverine win, especially after so many Redskin losses this year.

The many fans leaving early did nothing to prevent a much more time-consuming exit. State College is in the middle of nowhere in the mountains, which means that the 2 and 4 lane roads leaving it get overwhelmed by the 107,879 fans in attendance. (Though that number has to be ticket sales -- there were a lot of empty seats.) And of course, the State of Pennsylvania had decided to do construction. I guess I can't make fun of it too much -- when we hit Baltimore, two lanes of I-95 south had been closed down just as fans were leaving Camden Yards and Cal Ripken's last game. The trip back ended up taking about 3 more hours than the trip up.

All in all the day was a lot of fun, though if I do it again, I may just stay overnight.