Winter Weather Arrives

Winter weather arrived this week. It rained locally and snowed in the nearby mountains giving the area a fresh clean appearance.

Parking 101

Here's a photo of my Mazda after some idiot parked his pickup a tad too close. Parking Rule #1: Never hit a car parked next to you. Parking Rule #2: After mastering Rule #1 be certain to leave enough space between you and another car to avoid door dings. Parking Rule #3: After mastering Rule 1 & 2 be certain that you allow enough room for the person next to you to get in & out of their car.

Southern California Fires

This is just a quick post to let friends and blog followers know that we remain essentially untouched by the current Southern California fires. We are "essentially" untouched despite the Slide Fire (Running Springs) creeping to within a ridge-and-a-half of our community or that we are under a voluntary evacuation notice.

Yesterday our school district (Redlands Unified) canceled school for the three schools in East Highland. Today they canceled school district-wide. I assume this not due to an immediate danger of fire but instead for these reason: unhealthful air (smoke and ash) for children, and those teachers and staff who were under mandatory evacuation notices.

Post Script: The fires never spread into East Highland.

A Day in Montreal and Southern Quebec

It's time for our annual trek to Burlington, Vermont. This year we added a new diversion, a one day side trip to Southern Quebec and an overnighter in Montreal. Quite simply what we learned in Montreal is that it is well worth spending a few days there, as long as your day begins around 8:00 pm!

On Friday we walked Rue Saint Catherine exploring some of Underground Montreal. Dinner found us at the Hard Rock Cafe on Rue Crescent adding to our beer and martini glass collection. After dinner we dropped in to a local pub aptly named "Ziggy's" sitting outside watching the street spectacle stroll by and eavesdropping on multilingual conversations. Montreal is more than a Anglo/Franco melting pot, it's international.

Saturday found us with a few hours to spend strolling around Old Montreal taking in the sites. Below is view of Lord Nelson's monument at the Place Jacques-Cartier.








On our drive south to Burlington we discovered Quebec's wine country and with it we probably discovered why it is so unknown.








The only saving grace was the quaintness of the wineries and the fall foliage.

Web 2.0 and Open Office

Normally in this Blog I don't talk techie stuff, but today seems to be one of those watershed days that should be shouted out to everyone.

For a while now I've used two online and FREE Web 2.0 office applications services: Google Docs [formerly Docs and Spreadsheets] (docs.google.com) and the product suite from Zoho (www.zoho.com). I've also been a fan of the Sun sponsored free OpenOffice (www.openoffice.org) which was just updated. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, but for the average computer user they are nonetheless viable options to buying a full version of Microsoft Office. Best of all the allow the importing and exporting of documents in the standard MS Office file formats plus the ability to save files in the PDF format.

Yesterday Google bolstered its Google Docs suite with the introduction of its online version of Microsoft's PowerPoint; it's simply called Presentations. Presentation joins the existing elements for Documents (word) and Spreadsheets. Neat stuff but if you think that's nifty, then check out Zoho to see how many other office applications they offer.

Today, however everyone got trumped by IBM as they introduced their own free office product suite named Lotus Symphony (yes, it is a recycled name, but it's still a new product) and joined the Open Office movement. In the next few days I'll try to download a copy of Symphony and check it out (symphony.lotus.com). Looking at the minimum specs for Symphony does point out one potential near-term drawback, it requires 1 GB of RAM. Regardless, with the weight of IBM now behind the movement, the times they are a changing.

Why are these developments significant? Simply stated, I believe that in the next several years businesses will seriously question the necessity for purchasing common office applications from the likes of Microsoft or Corel. Instead they will join the Web 2.0 and Open Office revolution.

Think of the implications. For one thing, it's a step toward minimizing the digital divide by reducing the cost of computer ownership. It's also a way to reduce some the administrative overhead business commit toward software license and copyright management. It's also a way to facilitate the rapid adoption of new features: if you're using a Web 2.0 office application, new features are available with your next browser refresh; if you're using an Open Office application, you can bypass the evaluate/plan, budget, purchase, deploy cycle of technology tyranny and move straight from evaluation to deployment. Finally, Open Office products save documents in the Open Document format which is intended to not only be a universal file format, but is also a strategy for preventing your older documents from falling victim to legacy formats that are no long available or supported.

What do you think? Are we on the cusp of a new application paradigm or is this just hype and hope?

A Trip to USC

I briefly stopped by USC last Thursday to resolve an issue with my transcripts; thankfully I was able to have it resolved quickly. While I was there I snapped this photo of Tommy Trojan for old time sake.

Enough With the Old Jokes

OK, so today's my 50th birthday, but geeze did comic character Ziggy have to get in an old guy dig too?











(Ziggy is copyrighted byZiggy and Friends, Inc. 2007) - the cartoon is used here for non-commercial purposes

Fireworks Video to Appear on TV

Apparently my brief YouTube video of the News Years Eve fireworks in Sacramento will appear in a segment on fireworks videos on KOVR TV (CBS affiliate in Sacramento) tomorrow.

If you want to see the fireworks video click on this link Fireworks or view my New Years Eve post.

Father's Day

Once again a single photo (taken with my cell phone) covers a single day. The morning of Father's Day found a group of us playing golf (or in Sig's case, not playing) at the Teal Bend golf course just outside Sacramento. In the following picture are Spencer, Chris Teichert, and Ethan.

Wine Tasting in Amador County

Roberta, Ethan, and Sig ventured to the Amador County (east of Sacramento) for some wine tasting. The following picture says it all.

Cross Country Trek - Day 6

Today's travel involved driving from Portland to Sacramento; a drive of over 8 hours (excluding stops). Arrival quickly led to dinner. Later, Ethan and Jake went into Old Town in search of local flavor and libation.

Tomorrow will see us taking a side trip into the alternate wine country of Amador County instead of the traditional tourist area of Napa.

Cross Country Trek - Day 5

Jumping off from Missoula, Montana we continued our westward trek (basically following the path of Lewis & Clark) into the panhandle region of northern Idaho and quickly transitioning into Washington (Spokane). The objective of our routing was to follow the scenic route along the Washington side of the Columbia River and ultimately cross the river into Portland, Oregon.

Cross Country Trek - Days 3 & 4

After visiting the Mall of America (see previous post) we drove through Minnesota to North Dakota. This drive started at 1:00 pm (Central time) and ended after 7:00 pm (Mountain time) in Dickinson, ND. A lot of driving for a partial travel day!

We had a nice dinner in a regional "chain" restaurant, Sanford's. The food was excellent; the burgers are hand patted and the variety of burgers and other dishes were almost overwhelming (you should have seen the size of the menu!). Too bad we won't encounter another Sanford's on this trip.

Day 4 had us hauling butt from Dickinson through the western North Dakota Badlands and the Theodore Roosevelt National Park and into Montana. Admittedly the scenery in western North Dakota and Montana was more pleasant than the majority of the prairie areas of North Dakota. Our day ended in Missoula.

A review of Mall Of America: Ginormous!

Visited the Mall of America (MOA) yesterday. Yep, it’s a huge mall and yes, other malls have many of the same stores, but not all under one roof. We only had three hours to spend before hitting the road again on our cross country drive, so we tried to eye ball as much of MOA as we could. To do this we cruised the first and third levels (totally skipping the second level). We spent the majority of our time in three places: Nordstrom Rack, the Apple Store, and at lunch (Famous Dave’s).

If you are visiting from out-of-town like we were consider booking a hotel stay and allowing yourself a couple of days to do justice to the place.

See more progress on: Mall Of America

The Cross Country Trek

Here is an update on the cross country drive from New Jersey to California.

Day 1. We left South Orange a little after 7:00 am the car jammed with three people (Sig, Ethan, and his friend Jake), clothing, snacks, and more. Perhaps we had a bit too much stuff, but we figured we'd be able to adjust things as we went along.

We arrived at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland by 3:00 pm touring it until its 5:30 closing. Although it is located right on the shore of Lake Eire, a heavy lake fog prevented us from taking in the scenery. Instead we had to content ourselves with having seen the rock memorabilia and tributes inside the Hall. From the Hall we ambled off for a quick bite at the Hard Rock Cafe and then a short drive to our hotel. The excesses of the night before and the pace of the first day took its toll Ethan and Jake and it was an early end to the day for all.

Day 2. This was a grueling day. We left Cleveland at 8:00 to traveled to some truck stop outside an hour west to meet up with Jake's mother and sister for breakfast at MacDonald's; after that it was time to drive, and drive, and drive. 10:00 pm found us stopping in Minneapolis, MN for the evening. One day, five states (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsi, Minnesota), whew!

The morning of Day 3 will have us visiting the Mall of America and then on the road for North Dakota (2 of of my 43Places goals).

Ethan's Graduation

Can it be that four years have gone by already? It doesn't seem it was all that long ago when we dropped Ethan off at Seton Hall University (www.shu.edu) for his freshman year and then yesterday he graduated with a Bachelors in Political Science . The ceremony was held at the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Here is some photographic proof that he did in fact graduate:
(The Seton Hall Pirate & Ethan)

(Ethan spotted in the crowd)

(Sig, Spencer, Ethan, & Roberta after the ceremony)


(A kiss for luck)

Photos Added

Check out the Misc. Photos link in the sidebar to see new (old) black and white photos of me as child in the early 1960's and my dad in the US Navy in the early 1950's.

Fixed Photo Link

The "Misc. Photos" link in the sidebar is working again.

The Kutná Hora Experience

Today we took a side trip to Kutná Hora. If you've never heard of Kutná Hora, then there are a few things you need to know about it. First, it is on UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites (see http://www.kutnahora.cz/index.php?sec=2&cid=97). It is home to several impressive sites including:

Saint Barbara's Cathedral,



The Italian Court, and







The Cemetery Chapel with Ossuary (also known as the "Bone Church")

Yes, that's Ethan standing under a chandelier made with human bones (using every bone in the body)







Kutná Hora is an unassuming town despite its UNESCO designation and treasures. Locally, tourism hasn't altered the community much, at least yet.

Prague Experience - Part 3

Here are some more photos of our Prague experience. I may post additional comments later.

(Old Town Hall - Astronomical Clock)





(Castle Quarter - St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague Castle)






(500 year-old U Fleku Pub & Brewery)




(Wenceslas Square looking southeast)



(Terezin Concentration Camp - room capable of holding 500 prisoners)