No secret is the fact that I moved from Tucson to Chandler last summer. So far, the experience has been great. Roads are better maintained, there are streetlights, and most of the neighborhoods are well planned, and laid out with plenty of green space. My wife and I compare it to “Sunnyvale” where no dangerous critters are allowed. Cool so far.
However, there is a problem. It appears that people think it is OK to ride their bikes on the sidewalks. Apart from young children (say, less than 8 years old), all people should be riding in the street and obeying the rules of the road. But that appears to be missing in Arizona. Today, at lunch, I was walking (for exercise) and was almost creamed by a cyclist riding very fast on the sidewalk. I have been out with my dogs, walking on the sidewalk, and again, almost taken clean out. On a busy road (Gilbert Road).
Da fuq is up with that?
Later: Do they not teach kids here how to use hand signals?
I have been fortunate in my travels. I have close to 2 million miles of travel, and have spent time in a lot of countries, and have had relatively few incidents of food-borne illness. I have eaten street food in Taiwan, had unrecognizable parts of the chicken in China, eaten what probably was a pet in Korea, all without incident.
However, it hasn’t been a perfect record.
Japan – One of the places in the world with impeccable cleanliness, and cultural proclivity to freshness and clean. However, one day, eating sushi, I had some Uni (sea urchin roe) that tasted off. Boy was it ever. The 6 hour Shinkansen ride the next day was a wasted 1st class ticket. I spent most of the time in the restroom, and had to leave the meeting I attended a couple times to visit their facilities. Not pretty.
Singapore – Arguably the second safest place I have ever been (besides Japan), nonetheless, we ate at a street vendor. I missed my training sessions (that I was delivering) the next day. Ugh.
China – I had been in country for two weeks, and had eaten everything without incident. Then, while waiting to catch a flight, we grabbed some chow in the Beijing airport. I had bibimbap, the Korean dish with an egg on it. I was violently ill the entire flight home (12 hours, upstairs in a 747, a wasted business class upgrade).
Scotland – Not food related, but when my luggage didn’t arrive, and the meetings we were to present at were canceled, it was a completely wasted trip. That night, we drank scotch. Lots of scotch. I was still very drunk when I got to the airport the next day. I had been in country less than 24 hours, I had no luggage, and I reeked like a brewery. Oh yeah, I got the 3rd degree from the customs agent. Truth be told, I needed to vomit one more time. When we touched down in Dulles, I finally got my hangover, and it was a doosy. To this day, scotch is one liquor that I try to avoid.
France/Netherlands – We had a down day in Paris, so a few of us took in the sights. We probably walked 10 miles, in July. Hot for them, but not bad for us desert dwellers. The problem is that we didn’t hydrate enough. Having been in country for a week, I had already shed my “3 liters” that I carry because I live in the desert. I became ultra dehydrated, and that lead to a urinary tract infection. Three days later, as I got on the plane to come home, I was miserable. I called my wife, and had her pick me up (as I could barely stand up). Turns out that it had gone critical, I had a 104.5 fever, and I was in bad shape. Alas, some antibiotics, and I got better. No longer do I make fun of UTI’s when my female friends grumble about them. Truly miserable.
Following up on my earlier post about how I got into greyhounds, here is a video of the gang playing and bebopping around our courtyard. Lots of fun was had by all.
I have always been a dog person. Some people are cat people (up to the “crazy cat lady”), some are dog people, and some people shouldn’t do pets at all.
Currently, I have Greyhounds. Two brindle boys, who are 3 years apart, and are half brothers. Garrett is the elder statesman, quiet, reserved, and eh loves to sleep. Tate, the junior hellion, is the high energy, outgoing, engaging ambassador of the breed.
I first met greyhounds back in 1998 or so, when I moved into a condo in south San Jose. A neighbor had a pair of retired racing greyhounds, and my dog at the time, a 185# english mastiff, loved to play with them.
After we moved to Tucson, and Astro passed, we looked into a rescue greyhound. Our first, Oliver, was a skittish ‘fraidey cat. He was spooked by EVERYTHING, including bicycles, cars, walkers, other dogs. This was definitely a challenge, but he really became a well adjusted greyhound. (It helped that his brother, a half mastiff, half hungarian greyhound was a good tutor).
When we lost Shamus (the half mastiff/half greyhound) in 2008, he was 13 years old. the void was quickly filled with Garrett who was just awesome. Not afraid of anything, low prey drive, and easy going, he was a joy, and a good companion to Oliver.
We lost Oliver in 2010 to osteosarcoma (bone cancer). He was brave and a fighter to the end, but the location of the sarcoma (right shoulder) was pretty much a non-treatable malady. Fortunately, Oliver’s departure made room for Tate.
For a couple years now, we have been volunteering for the local Greyhound rescue organization. I work closely with the communications group and I built/maintain their website (http://sagreyhoundadoption.org). It is a worthy way to spend my spare time, helping place these wonderful hounds into loving forever homes.
I came of age at a fortuitous time. In high school, the Apple ][ computers arrived and were in a lab that you could take a course. I learned a lot about microcomputers there, and soon saved my paper route money to buy my own (not an Apple, way too expensive, I went the Atari route – better games). I learned a lot about that system, I learned to program in basic, and rudimentary assembly language, I learned a lot of the concepts about computing that serve me well today.
Public Discourse appears to be dying in the social media age
After a couple of years, I got immersed into the BBS community. With the simple addition of a modem, a piece of hardware that connected you via telephone to other computers, you could share files, and trade stories. I enjoyed participating so much that I soon took the plunge and began running a BBS of my own. I made a lot of friends, “chatted” with people from across the country, and even a few international ones.
Part of the charm of the BBS culture were the message forums. These often led to animated discussions back and forth between users (and myself of course). I graduated from that to USENET, UUCP, and the various discussion venues. For a long time I hung out at rec.motorcycles.dirt where off road motorcyclists hung out, and planned excursions.
From there came the special interest forums. Truly a child of the internet age, there is a plethora of topics and communities that have evolved. From auto detailing, to dedicated forums for specific video games, to Japanese Anime collectors, there are sure to be something that strikes your fancy.
Then came Twitter. Suddenly conversations were limited to 140 characters (the size of an SMS text message). Instead of commenting on a blog post that you agree with, or dispute, it is now the norm to just “tweet” it, and leave the discussion in the Twitter universe, hopelessly buried in the noise. Blog posts that 3 or 4 years ago would have elicited a dozen or more responses, now have no activity.
I believe that this is a shame. The value of the intercourse of ideas, a foundation of intellectual pursuit, has been reduced to the re-tweet.
I for one make a point of commenting often when I come across a topic that piques my curiosity. But it appears that the ephemeral vehicle that is the 140 character tweet is destroying the practice of public discourse.
A week and a half ago, my Wife bought gas at a Quick Trip in Tucson. Apparently, some shitball skimmer had jacked the pump she used, and lifted her credit card information.
We came back from a short holiday in San Diego, checked out bank account, and found some sleazeball had used Western Union to wire $969 our of our checking account.
Fuck. Call the bank, put a hold on the charge (it went through), call western union, who professes ignorance, call the police and complain.
Apparently, this is the common MO. They lift the card info, they use western union, who lets people wire money with just a credit card number and expiration date. They send a value around $1000, and pocket the transfer.
So, we have barely $100 until payday (9 days away), unless we hit our savings.
Well, I have been an on and off user of posterous for a few years. Probably less than 100 posts, some insightful, some silly. I guess they will fit here.
