Thursday, August 30, 2007

goodbye pasadena, or "peace I'm out"

Man, there is nothing left in our house- I mean, "our old house," except for echoes and dust bunnies, so it's time for me to hit the road and head up to Salinas.

Old Neighborhood:

Goodbye Los Angeles,


Goodbye Pasadena,


I will miss you, but I promise to visit and email often.

New neighborhood:

Oh Salinas.... you are so rural, you salad bowl of the nation you...

with your clean air, sunshine, and views


I look forward to more mellow than I'm used to.

Things in common between Salinas and Pasadena:
1) horse stables < 1 mile from home
2) gorgeous view of the mountains
3) current or former Crockett place of residence (1 or 0 Crocketts there)

Peace I'm outta here!

Monday, August 27, 2007

as featured on LinkedIn

Henceforth, I shall only respond when addressed as, "Crockett, as featured on LinkedIn."


It's not The Daily Show or Wired magazine, but I'll take it!

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

celebrate war... good times!

Not!

Something has really been bugging me, but I haven't been able to compose a blog-worthy (although as I type this I realize my blogworthiness standards are low) analysis. A couple weeks after reading Slaughterhouse-Five, viewing The Fog of War, and immediately after watching the HBO documentary film, White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (2007), I am disturbed enough to share my unpolished thoughts.

It has often occurred to me that war is usually, if not always, NOT a smart move. Especially when one considers the human cost, the long-term cost (read: blowback) of the bad-will generated by the conflict, and the eventual resentment held by the defeated (how's that Afghanistan reconstruction going? And how are the losers of the United States Civil War faring in comparison to the winners?).

Seriously, starting an unnecessary war is just intellectually lazy. The action itself indicates that it has not been thoroughly considered. We understand this about nuclear war: No one wins, so no one starts global nuclear wars. Good for us.

I mean, the violence of warfare is about as glamorous as a multi-fatality motor vehicle accident. If high-tech civilization & society are a organisms, then war is our cancer. See what I'm saying?

OK- we all agree: war sucks. I think everyone who has seen first-hand death & violence knows that, right? Sure, military might is cool (awesome toys), but destroying lives is not. So why do we keep fighting throughout recorded history? Certainly powerful men are well versed in history. So am I naive? Or perhaps I lack a certain predatory gene or brain region?

Or am I the only sane one around here?

What if a nation took the unprecedented action of sending a ton of diplomats to live in a rogue state, rather than tons of destruction?

If we can all agree that generally humans want (1) to survive and (2) to not hurt, then why do we still fight wars? Well, someone has to start them, right? Who? Maybe the leaders who are also starters of war lean more towards the socio/psychopathic than true representation of the will of the population?

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Notable first: just received a txt from friend in church.

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This mobile text message is brought to you by AT&T

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Battleship Best Western, Mobile, AL

shout out from my room @ the Battleship Best Western, Mobile, AL.

Demetri Martin says, "Ladies....?"

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

@ age 31, poop still interesting

As an IT "systems guy," I respect the patient, methodical problem solving described in the article below.

Plus it's about poop, which still retains its childish appeal to me!

from Reuters
Chicken and rice ends thief's toilet trauma

Mon Aug 6, 2007 9:07AM EDT

KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - Dozens of bananas failed to do the trick but an Indian thief has finally produced a gold necklace he had snatched and then swallowed after police fed him a hearty meal of chicken, rice and local bread.

Sheikh Mohsin, 35, grabbed the 45,000-rupee ($1,115) necklace from a woman in the eastern city of Kolkata Friday and popped it into his mouth when cornered by police.

Officers then fed him 40 bananas over a few hours believing they would act as a purgative, and sat back and waited for results.

Mohsin passed an uncomfortable night in jail, but not the piece of jewelry.

Police said Sunday he was then given more substantial fare.

"Now he wants to go free and doesn't want to even hear about bananas any more," senior officer Gyanwant Singh told Reuters.

A tired and rueful Mohsin was, however, staring at 3 years in jail if convicted, Singh added.

"Bananas were good enough for another thief who had swallowed an ornament a few months ago, but Mohsin was definitely a tough cookie," said one clearly impressed police constable.

Even the monitors crash now?!

I have this totally bad-ass, 21" Gateway HD Flat panel display.

Part of the awesomeness is the ability to switch from portrait to landscape physically by rotating the monitor. This gives added flexibility for those of us with multiple displays who spend lots of time at computer and desire frequent office configuration changes.

Here's the thing, though: it crashes sometimes. Yes, my monitor remains dark and its on-off button becomes unresponsive.

And I always fall for the trick of believing it's my OS. You see, the monitor that crashes is the primary display where I should see my login prompt when I wake up the computer. But I don't see my login prompt- just dark screen. So I think one of my remote RDP sessions is "stuck," or there is some other issue.

I usually try control-alt-delete, and login via another remote computer, before remembering that the solution is to cycle the power by unplugging the monitor (soft-switch button is unresponsive).

And the first time this occurred, I even began troubleshooting hardware, but realized what was going on as soon as I swapped the two monitors' vga plugs and saw the previously hidden login prompt on other monitor.

What is the meaning of this? Dunno. Either, "technology marches forward," or, "I'm becoming old and inflexible." I often suspect the latter when I try to relate to the millennial-generation developers I work with, like Yan).

cheers!

Saturday, August 04, 2007

Mad Max, Beyond Thunderdome- errr, I mean Castaic


Every time I travel the desert from Los Angeles to Salinas via the 5 freeway, I feel like I'm in the movie Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.


Friday, August 03, 2007

Jake Brown Update

From: http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-xgames4aug04,1,6751349.story?track=crosspromo&coll=la-headlines-sports&ctrack=1&cset=true

"...contusions of the liver and lung, stress fractures in his vertebrae and a small fracture on the top of one hand..."

"...expected to be released from California Hospital Medical Center Saturday or Sunday and make a full recovery...."

Jake Brown medical status? Hospital admission? Discharge?

This morning I wasn't able to find any reports of Jake Brown's injury status, after he survived the nastiest skateboard slam I've ever seen last night at the x-Games big air. We were watching this at the Staples Center, and it was really horrible. We thought this was a tragedy for sure.

Before making any more of a big deal about his walking off the ramp (after slamming so hard both shoes popped off, and reportedly lying unconscious, un-breathing, with his eyes open for several minutes), I'd like to know what type of recovery he is looking at, or if he is even still alive!

Anyone have any info? I gotta get back to work, but I'm very concerned about the guy, but hopeful to find out that he really is a-OK.

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Joe Theismann, Clint Malarchuk, now Jake Brown's 50 foot fall

Analisa and I just returned from the Big Air finals of x-Games 13 @ Staples Center, and I gotta be honest, I'm still a little queasy-feeling. Jake Brown fell farther and harder than I've ever seen in the sport.

I mean we knew he was in trouble because he pushed way off the ramp and was flailing in the air heading down to the flat part of the half pipe (too far out to hit knees and slide), but he somehow rotated onto his back in the air... and when he hit, butt first then back & head slammed, you could feel the thud of the wood in your chest at the other side of the stadium. He hit so hard both shoes flew off to the other end of the ramp.

I felt sick instantly... all I thought was, "no." Either his life or career was certainly over.

By now Jake Brown has probably either been examined, (hopefully) cleared, and admitted to the hospital for observation, or is perhaps in surgery for internal injuries.

That's right, for some reason he's apparently neither dead nor paralyzed. He even walked off the ramp, upright! Thankfully they got him back down on a stretcher and continued examining him for neck and back injuries before transporting him (to the hospital, I presume).

OK, back home now, I just watched the replay on TiVO and you can hear Tony Hawk saying, "oh-no. oh-no..." as Brown flails in the air, way too far inside the ramp to slide down safely. But then as Brown gets closer to the ground, and it becomes evident that he has rotated onto his back and is about to slam deadly hard, Hawk's voice gets quieter, and higher-pitched: real fear enters, and he almost whimpers, "oh... god."

Then his voice is unsteady and the sentences are incomplete. Brown is lying on the ramp like a rag-doll, clearly unconscious as medics rush to him (each medics reaction is the same, hands go to head and mouth, just like Hawk's, "oh... no" and announcers are bumbling about hoping for the best, as we're all fearing the worst, saying things about "the risk is always there in this sport," and, "measured risk."

So I don't know about the X-Games anymore. I mean, I'd never thought about it like NASCAR, where someone might die. I knew we were getting to that point, especially with the Moto-X stuff. I dunno.

Jake Brown video: big air 720, crash Thursday Night X-Games 13- 1/2


Jake Brown video: big air 720, crash Thursday Night X-Games 13- 2/2

ESPN version of Jake Brown's slam + miraculous survival here: ESPN footage of Jake Brown bail http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?videoId=2959379&n8pe6c=2

Here they include some interviews with Jake, who doesn't recall the landing, and even asked, "did I try the 720?" after regaining consciousness. Apparently he was not breathing and his eyes were open immediately after impace : more details and Jake Brown's reaction here