The conversion starts with some extra milk jugs, juice containers, or anything denser than water – I used a juice container.

1. Fill the container with water.

Pick an appropriate water bottle

2. Place the container into the tank of the toilet.

Inside the toilet reservoir

3. Enjoy saving water and money.

This will work for any toilet, but is especially helpful for toilets that use more than 1.6 gallons per flush. My previous house had 3 gallon per flush toilets and by using multiple containers, I was able to bring the usage down to 1.5 gallons per flush.  At this residence, I have newer 1.6 gallon per flush toilets and I used a single half-gallon jug to lower that to 1.1 gallons per flush.

I can also report that lowering the toilets usage doesn’t result in clogged toilets.  You might need to experiment a bit to find the right ratio of savings to flushing power, but I personally have had no trouble, even with the toilet only using 1.1 gallons per flush.

Another great thing about this technique – it’s free and allows renters to be more efficient immediately rather than waiting on their landlord.  Give it a shot and happy flushing.

Hold Steady - Almost Killed Me

I’m starting the post with a positive jam (thanks Hold Steady).  This post might be scary to some and I figured you might want the mental reinforcement.  Ever since mobile phones became connected to the Internet, the ability of “the man” to track us has become easier and easier.  Ironically, this power was given freely by most netizens.

It’s not wiretaps, email snooping, or cell phone tracking that give them (and your grandparents) the ability to know what you are doing minute to minute, but instead twitter posts, facebook status updates, yelp/foursquare/gowalla check-ins, and something I wanted to talk about in this post – geolocation.

Geolocation for those unaware, is the adding of real world address or GPS information to a virtual object like a picture or post.  The reason I wanted to call attention to geolocation is that compared to status updates, twitter posts, etc., it often happens unknowingly or accidentally for the average user.  When you post to twitter that you are eating at such and such restaurant, you’re actively telling the world where you are.  When you post/email an interesting photo for your friends to see, you may not realize that you could give out your home address.

This is because newer cameras and most smart phones can now use their built-in GPS units to tag photos with where they were taken, including your home or anywhere you take pictures.  The problem for the average user is that the picture doesn’t appear to hold this information and so there is seemingly nothing to fear.

The location information is there, I promise

For those that know where to look though, it’s quite simple.  I took the picture above with my iPhone this summer while at the Very Large Array and as I will show you, it recorded exactly where I was standing.  Viewing the information involves something called EXIF. You can think of EXIF information as the writing on the back of the photo.  In the past, EXIF information included what type of camera took the picture, when it was taken, what the aperture of the camera was, etc., but now it can also include information like GPS coordinates.

On a Mac, the process involves opening the photo in Preview, viewing the inspector, and going to the GPS tab.  Apple conveniently put a “Locate” button that shows me on Google Maps exactly where the photo was taken.

Screenshot showing GPS information lookup

On Windows, the process almost as simple.  Just right-click the picture and click properties.  Under the “Details” tab if you scroll down, you might see a GPS section like the one pictured.  I should note that this is only for Vista and Windows 7.  Windows XP will not show the GPS section even if the photo contains one.  For XP users you can download a program called KUSO to see this information.

Example using Windows 7

Now that you’ve seen it done, it seems pretty simple. Most people have never opened the “Inspector/Properties” and thus never realized just how much data is there beyond just the picture.

You can relax slightly because common places photos are posted to: facebook, twitpic, and flickr clear out this information automatically.  While they may be removing it from public viewing, they still are able to see this information themselves and they could change their policy about sharing that information at any time, so I still recommend removing the data yourself before uploading.

When using less reputable websites, forums, or emailing attachments is when you are most vulnerable.  In these scenarios, the photo is sent unaltered and thus containing all the EXIF information.  In these cases, you will need to remove the information yourself before sending.

So how do we get rid of this information?  There are many programs, and many operating systems, so I can’t go into all the ways, but I’ll cover a couple very common scenarios for Mac and Windows.

When using iPhoto on a Mac, whenever you export a photo or share a photo, there is a little checkbox for including location information.  Just make sure the it’s unchecked and you are ready.

Exporting in iPhoto

A program called SmallImage for the Mac is another good option if you prefer to remove all EXIF information in addition to the GPS data.

For windows you can download a program called Easy EXIF Delete.  For Adobe Photoshop users, on either OS X or Windows, use the “Save for Web…” command and this will remove any extra data.

There is of course one way to avoid all of this hassle – don’t use the location services of your phone or camera.  I have an iPhone, so I can show you how to disable it on iPhone/iPod Touch devices, but for other manufacturers you’ll need to check with Google or your nearest geek.

Location Settings

On the iPhone, click Settings ->General ->Location Services. Here you can disable all location services at the top, or pick which individual applications are allowed to know where you are.  Find the Camera and slide it to “OFF” and now all your photos will be geolocation free.

This is by no means a comprehensive list, but Google is your friend and I mainly wanted to bring the idea of geolocation to your attention.  There are plenty of good reasons to have your photos geotagged, but knowing when to use it, when not to use it, and how to remove it, will keep this feature from turning into a liability.

Now, this is nothing new, and I suppose I should take it as a backhanded complement, but it’s still irritating.  It’s especially irritating when the particular thief doesn’t even take the time to download the photo and re-upload it to their own servers, thereby wasting my bandwidth.  This laziness does, however, allow me to do certain things for retribution.  When a photo is referenced from another person’s website it means that if I change the photo on my site, it also changes the photo on any site that referenced that photo.

I should note that before changing the photo in the example below, I did try to contact the administrator to get an attribution, but that failed, so I made a slight edit to my photo that affected their homepage.

If you are too lazy to take your own photos, let me offer you some pointers.  If you find something on the Google Image Search or similar services and want to use it, contact the creator.  If that’s too much, after stealing the photo simply give a link showing where you got the photo from.

Example:

Photo Courtesy of Kungfubrew.com

Still asking to much?  Stop the Google Image Search and head over to flickr.com and search the Creative Commons photos.  They have a little checkbox for “Find content to use commercially” and you can take all that your heart desires.

Lesson over…you’re welcome.

-The Management

The rhetoric in the US has become so divided that inaction and maintaining the status quo almost sound favorable compared to some of proposed solutions, and yet that isn’t what I want either. We must come to some common ground. Fortunately, I believe there’s one area of life we can start to work together on whether you are a Tea Party supporter or a Socialist – local community prosperity.

For the Right, going local takes power away from centralized government, multinational corporations, and Wall Street fat cats.  For the Left, going local is environmentally sound, anti-corporate, and promotes community.  People and politicians can argue all day long about which policies will stimulate local initiatives, but nothing is preventing people from changing their buying habits other than well-crafted marketing campaigns and a perceived convenience of big box retailers.

Long ago, my father told me that “every dollar spent is a vote.”  It’s a philosophy that I’ve mentioned before, but an idea that has stuck with me and also one I believe is the most powerful in our current “free-market.”  Whether it’s spent on various products, charitable donations, or campaign contributions, these “votes” decide what products, services, and policies the private market and public figures will focus their attention on.

Going local can mean many things.  In recent history the focus has been on where you shop and what you eat.  Those choices are very important, but I want to call attention to an area little talked about – how you purchase.

The average consumer is probably unaware that the switch from using cash to credit has hurt businesses of all kinds greatly. Every swipe of the card deducts anywhere from 2% to 3% of the sale away from the business and to the credit card company and issuing bank. To put that in perspective, if a business does $30,000 in sales for a given month, they are losing up to $900 for the month or $10,800 for the year. That’s money that a lot of small businesses do not have or could use to pay their employees more.

Other countries have passed regulations that have curbed the excessive fees that credit card companies charge.  In the case of Australia, transaction fees have been lowered to 0.5% (a 600% reduction). Of course lobbying congress to fight the credit card companies could take a while, so it might be best to take matters into your own hands.

The most apparent way to do this is always pay in cash. I highly recommend cash because it’s simple and limits your likelihood of going into debt. For many people this is not possible or practical, either for financial reasons or just convenience. A possible compromise exists by switching your national credit and debit cards to a local credit union.

The switch helps mitigate the problem of high transaction fees by keeping money the hands of the local community.  While the transaction fee will still be charged, the majority of the fee goes to the issuing bank and in this case, your credit union.  Rather than the money leaving your community for Wall Street, it goes to your local credit union and is used for loans within the community.

The same is true for the interest you will pay on that debt to the credit card company.  Rather than interest payments bolstering stock values, they will instead be bolstering your local economy.

The whole idea of “going local” is to improve the economy and sustainability of the community you live in, and the more money you can keep in that community, the better it will do.  I am personally in the middle of such a transition and will post more about the pros and cons as I come across them.

There’s more to local credit unions than just changing the way you purchase.  The benefits are several fold and for more information, you can read these articles here and here.

Trees on the beach in Belize

Simple black and white that grabs me for some reason.  Nothing too special about it…just like it.

The Internet, and technology in general, would look very different today if not for their contributions.  Without open source software it becomes cost prohibitive for most people and even smaller companies to take part in the new information age.  Behind most sites (including this one) is a very powerful, free, and feature-rich set of software called LAMP – Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP.  There are alternatives to these of course, but LAMP is the de facto standard for web hosting/development and with it you can accomplish anything Microsoft and Oracle products can.  Did I mention it’s free.

Hopefully I haven’t lost you at this point because here is why you should care.  Not only are open source projects the backbone of serving Internet content, but they are increasing becoming feature-rich and stable replacements for much of the software average users pay for.  The most common example is Firefox and other Gecko engine derivatives.  Open source on the desktop goes further than just web browsers.

With very few exceptions, for any paid software product, there is an open source equivalent.  While a few google searches can help you find these options, OSAlt.com (Open Source as Alternative) simplifies the process.  Just type in the paid application’s name and the site returns results of the open source equivalents.  For example, want to edit images but don’t want to shell out $699 for Adobe Photoshop CS4.  OSAlt recommends 5 alternatives broken down by operating system with ratings and reviews for each.

Remember that while some software is free, that doesn’t mean it’s open source.  Programs like AIM, Quicktime, and Acrobat Reader might be free, but they often include ads or adware, and are bloated pieces of software hogging memory and resources.  Open source software exists to replace all of these.

Here of some of my favorites that I recommend:

• Firefox (Replaces Internet Explorer/Safari)
• VLC Media Player (Replaces Windows Media Player, Quicktime, RealOne, DVD player)
• Gimp GimpShop (Replaces Adobe Photoshop)
• Pidgin[win] or Adium[os x] (Replaces AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, MySpaceIM, etc)
• InfraRecorder[win] or Burn[os x] (Replaces Nero, Toast, CD/DVD Burning)
• LibreOffice OpenOffice (Replaces Microsoft Office, iWork)
• TrueCrypt (Replaces PGP, better than win/mac built-in encryption)
• Handbrake (Replaces video transcoders.  DVD->MP4, MOV->AVI, etc)
• Audacity (Replaces SoundForge, Audition)
• Ubuntu (Replaces Windows, OS X)
• DOSBox (Run old-school DOS on new computers, play old games, etc)

There are many many more, but these are the ones I find myself using on a daily basis.  Enjoy and please feel free to comment/send me your favorites.

Take a screen shot and send it to me or post a link in the comments.

• Macs: Press Command+Shift+3 and that will make a file on your desktop to send/post.
• PCs: Press PrintScreen and then open Paint and then Ctrl+v, now save as a JPEG and send/post.

I am a huge nerd.  Just need to get that out there.  I search for the appropriate reasoning and rationale that will enable me to purchase new pieces of technology.  Thus, a little over two years ago, I decided that my aging Toshiba could no longer keep up with my need for running multiple virtual machines or compressing media and the search for a replacement began.  Previously I would have dismissed any Apple product, but with the recent transition to the x86 architecture and Vista’s crashiness, I was forced to consider the switch.

I’m an IT professional and I feel compelled to know something about everything and OS X was something I knew very little about.  At that time Apple was the only place to find a machine that would run all operating systems compiled for x86.  Benchmarks had also found that the fastest stock laptop running XP was the MacBook Pro.  To make a long story short, after a lot of research, I made the mac switch.  What really pushed me over the edge was a combination of bootcamp and the VMs from VMWare and Parallels.

Since then OS X has become more and more my main environment.  Developers have embraced the platform and there are fewer and fewer times I find myself launching my XP or Ubuntu virtual machines.  XP only gets launched to organize mp3s with MediaMonkey or play the occasional game of Counter Strike.  I realize that at this point my first statement of “I hate Apple fanboys” might be sound a tad hypocritical, and allow me to retort.

Currently I believe that Apple has the best lineup for consumers assuming you can afford the entry price.  There was definitely a point when I felt much like Tyco and Gabe, but what it really boils down to is competition is good for the consumer, and currently Apple is winning.  Things that Windows users are just now getting – indexed system-wide search, decent media management, LED displays, multi-touch surfaces, and user account controls – were on the mac first and arguably implemented better.

I have a feeling that the battle between Apple and Microsoft is going to mirror the competition between AMD and Intel.  In that situation, a smaller company (AMD) brought about new technologies and features (3D Now, 64-bit, integrated memory controllers, multiple cores, low-power cpus) and debunked the myth that more MHz/GHz is better.  These innovations allowed them to gain market share and profits, but awakened a sleeping giant (Intel) which promptly put its much larger budget and marketing behind including all of those features into its next products (Core2 and i7) thus relegating AMD back to its small niche market.

My current beta testing of Window 7 seems to confirm some of this.  Microsoft’s next release takes dead aim at OS X and will definitely provide enough features and stability to keep the masses from switching.  What remains to be seen is how secure Windows 7 will be.  The fact that “Patch Tuesday” exists and that remote code executions are still being patched is appalling.  Especially from a company that 88% of the market and our own government rely on.  It’s a sad but true joke, “How do you make Windows more secure…install Firefox.”

So far this has been a fairly pro-Apple rant, but you will never catch me saying “I’m a mac”.  I might say “I use a mac”, because it’s absurd to define one’s self by the computer you use…if you use one at all (I also use a Tower typewriter).  There is no need to draw lines between PCs and Macs, because if you do, you might miss out on something more functional and useful while trying to remain brand loyal.  Also, different platforms have better uses depending on environment.  I’m not going to install Windows on my router/firewall just because “I’m a PC” – that’s what BSD is for.  I’m not going to install Slackware on my parents computer no matter how secure/l337 it might be.

Now listen up Microsoft and Apple, stop trying to create a culture with ads.  Spend that money on developing new products, paying your staff, and limiting layoffs.  Trust me, word of mouth will do more than “I’m a (blank)” ever could.  Besides, it probably won’t matter what platform you are using once cloud computing reaches its full potential.

]]> http://kungfubrew.com/home/2009/04/im-a-mac-pc-penquin-beastie/feed/ 0 http://kungfubrew.com/home/2009/04/photo-of-the-week-5/ http://kungfubrew.com/home/2009/04/photo-of-the-week-5/#comments Mon, 20 Apr 2009 14:00:52 +0000 John http://kungfubrew.com/home/?p=212

Migratory birds beware

Once again I find myself travelling to Austin.  This makes 3 times in the last month.  For whatever reason I decided that I should drive this time, which means taking a two hour nap at 10PM, waking up at 12AM and then driving 17 hours.  As I was driving on I-20, the sheer number of wind generators is astounding.  For about 15 miles around Sweetwater, TX, as far as you can see north and south is nothing but a sea of windmills.  I was lucky enough to grap this shot by holding my camera out the passenger side window.  Hopefully “green” companies are friendlier about leasing the land and royalties than oil speculators of the past.

Bless me father..

REPENT MORTALS!  With Easter coming up I figured I’d throw up one of my more pious photos.  This was taken in the cathedral in Zócalo Square in Mexico D.F.  Sorry that the quality is so bad.  God would not allow me to use a flash in his house, and my point and shoot introduces a lot of noise at ISO 800.

Dangriga, Belize

It snowed last week and more is coming next week…when will teleportation be available so I can hoverboard the beaches of Central America.

Congress Bridge Austin, TX

I need to dedicate an entire post to SXSW, but until I find the time this will have to do.  I have been in love with the 15 second shutter opening lately, so you may see many more blurry headlights, but damnit if it doesn’t turn a mediocre shot into…”oh…very nice.”

360 Bridge in Austin, TX

I love this pic, even though the guys in this probably hate me for posting it…too bad.

Love Park, Philadelphia

From now on, I think I will be doing these updates every Monday.  This photo was taken on one of my first business trips.  That trip is actually the subject of the first couple posts on KFB, so enjoy the view and head to the archives.

Flinders Street Station Melbourne, Australia

Today I am going to start a new segment on KFB, the Photo of the Week.  This may be an oldie from the archives (like todays) or something new, but basically this is a way for me to give everyone at least one thing new every week without stressing myself out over a full blown post.  Plus, it will have the added benifit of keeping my photography juices flowing.

Everything I post will be formatted for 8×10 prints, so if you are wanting a desktop shot (16:10), shoot me an email and I’ll recrop it or get your thinking caps on and do it yourself  :o)

At first NPR was a diversion from typical radio.  I grew tired of flipping between 7 clear channel stations trying to locate a song, any song, worth listening to.  As long as I was listening to bad radio,  I figured I might as well catch up on local and world news.

I had listened to public radio before, but this time it was different.  I stumbled into the appropriate demographic unknowingly.  Suddenly the problems or Uganda, or the droning music of John Ailey, or the happenings in Lake Wobegon became interesting to me.  Now I prefer to listen to NPR over anything else on the radio.  I find myself yelling answers at Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, or solving the puzzler of Car Talk.

One particular show resides above all the rest.  I must credit Meaghan with forcing her love of This American Life upon me, and I must thank her for it.  My attraction cannot compare to the almost obsessive love Meaghan has for this hour of radio, but I do love it.  I often fantasize about having Ira Glass introduce a story of mine on his show.  This is followed by public acclaim and having my memoirs reach the top of the New York Times bestsellers list.

So after many years of only being a passive listener, I am now going to assume the roll of storyteller.  If I were to have a story told on This American Life, it would go a little something like this:

A few days, maybe a week will go by and suddenly I’ll realize that a new pattern in behaviors had emerged.  Occasionally I place a wrench on the cogs, spinning the machine out of control, but invariably elves or nanobots or some other inner Mr. Fixit puts the machine back in working order and I’m back to my daily grind.

It sounds like I might think of this as a problem, but there is a certain amount of routine and stability that I enjoy and wish to maintain.  As long my routines don’t turn into hackneyed phrases like “I woke up one day and I was forty.”

As I’ve been pondering my current routines I find that I keep landing on only things I do before noon.  A good poop, making coffee, catching up on my personal email and favorite websites, and the series of events in which I groom myself.  Rarely, I think, do people put much emphasis on evening routines.  There may be a just got home from work routine, or a just before bed routine, but these are often skipped, and little discussed.  The fulfillment of an evening routine is dependent on the previous days actions.  Was it a good day, or a bad day?  Do you have more work waiting for you at home, or a dinner to go to?  The morning however always starts out the same way – wake up and get out of bed and therefore is itself part of the morning routine.

All that said, here is a little peak at my first and favorite routine of the day – making and consuming coffee.

Unfortunately, I find that while I’m a creative problem solver when math, processes, and electrons are involved, this does not necessarily translate into the arts.  A few years ago I was very interested in audio creation and production and became versed in the ways of Audacity, Sound Forge, Garage Band, Fruity Loops, Pro Tools, and Reason to name a few.  While I know know an incredible amount about how music is created and produced using these programs, under my direction, bad techno is still bad techno regardless of whether I’m using an intro program like Garage Band or and advanced tool like Reason.

Now comes my new found interest in video production and editing.  Currently I am trying out several different programs.  The first post from yesterday was done using Avidemux and VirtualDub (both open source and free).  Today I created a similar video using iMovie just to compare the processes and workflows of the programs.  While iMovie is definately easier to handle, I feel the options lost (and the fact it requires a mac) limit it to only certain basic tasks.  So welcome everyone to my amateurish films, hopefully with time they will become more intriguing and complex.  Along the way I hope to share why one thing worked and another one didn’t.

Now to continue yesterday’s theme of hitting the open road, here is some old footage of a drive through southern Australia on the Great Ocean Highway from Melbourne to the Twelve Apostles.  Pardon the pixelated and choppy nature of the video, it was shot with a 8 year old Sony camera in which high quality mode was 320×240 @ 15fps.

In Austin, “around” was in the hill country on the west side of Capitol of Texas Highway.  One of my favorite routes was to start at Mopac and 2222 heading west, take a left on City Park Road and follow it all the way down to the river.  Toward the end, City Park forks and you take a left on Pearce Road, which winds in a big loop back to City Park Road.  I cannot condone speeding, but the more rubber burnt the better.  After eight years of trekking around Austin, I had run out of roads that would interest me, but with the recent relocation to Colorado I am presented with a much greater wealth of curving asphalt to explore.

This past weekend I decided to drive to Winter Park.  On this particular journey I did have a destination in mind – to go snowboarding, but really the drive was just as fulfilling as cruising on powder.  It better be because a day trip from my house to Winter Park results in equal parts time spent driving and snowboarding.  I must recommend that you take some time for this.  It’s one of those “smell the roses” activities.  Of course if you are just too busy, join me on a road trip at 6x normal speed.

]]> http://kungfubrew.com/home/2009/02/get-out-on-the-highway/feed/ 0 http://kungfubrew.com/home/2009/02/eye-of-the-tiger/ http://kungfubrew.com/home/2009/02/eye-of-the-tiger/#comments Sun, 08 Feb 2009 00:39:01 +0000 John http://kungfubrew.com/home/?p=120 Well I’m back, and I’m broken.  I think my picture from the last post pretty much sums it up.  Tomorrow I run (and probably walk).

Today that changes – although my plan is not as you might expect.  I am driving down to the gym, working out, and…wait for it…canceling my membership.  No longer will I pay to be unhealthy.  Instead I’m doing this Balboa style.  It’s time to run through snow up mountains, escaping communists and building lung capacity.  It’s time to hang from the rafters and do ab splitting sit ups and there’s nothing Dolph Lundgren can do to stop my montage worthy workout.

It has been almost a year since I exercised in any serious fashion, so most likely I’ll just end up like this:

This is how I'll feel in about an hour

Wish me luck, I’m going to need it.

This weekend was my birthday, so the usually flurry of emotions involving time passing arose: have I done enough with my life, where am I headed, damn I’m old, etc.  This weekend in particular was crisis worthy due to a wedding of high school friends – that are younger than myself.  It was an amazing wedding for two people who are truly in love and I wish Amanda and Dan luck even though I don’t think they need it.

Amanda and Dan with Josh presiding

Among my friends I am probably ahead of the curve when it comes to analyzing if your success is on track with your age, but when compared to my minds eye, I’m behind.  I have a steady job, but I’m not on the fast track, I have a fantastic girlfriend, but I’m not married, and I haven’t lived in a foreign country.  Some of these could be deemed positives depending on circumstance, but since I’m grading myself on what a young John would have thought, I’m failing.

Now the real question, do I care that I’m failing?  Ironically…no.  I worry myself on these days and then I move on.  Over and over again I was asked when Meaghan and I plan on tying the knot, but I don’t have a good answer for them.  I tell them that we’re not concerned about getting married, which then prompts them to ask why that is and I give some bull about neither of us having a high opinion of marriage, but the truth is I have no idea why.  I just know that both of us are happy and don’t want to rock the boat.

In talking with Dan on the night before his wedding I articulated the response in a new way that encompasses the feeling correctly.  I enjoy waking up and knowing that the person beside me is there without obligation and without contract.  That person could leave at any time but doesn’t because this is exactly where they want to be.  At this moment in my life that’s exactly what I want – to be wanted.  There will be time down the road to choose security over self-esteem.

This road may not be what young John had envisioned, but when I go to sleep, it’s calm and peaceful sleep.  If my parents are concerned that I’m a 27 years old without a college degree, unmarried, and without children then too bad, because I learned it from my dad.  He always told me “you can grow older, but you don’t have to mature” and I was always taught to say yes sir, yes ma’am, and mind your parents.

Most of my memorable life has been filled with national disappointments.  Nobody landed on the moon, no wars ended well, no civil liberties were granted.  Those are my parents’ and grandparents’ stories and I’ve been jealous.  Well no more.

McCain gave a very humble concession speech and then Obama gave yet another fantastic speech as he accepted our highest office.  Now my only regret is that we must wait two months while W. trashes the white house and makes last minute policy decisions.

Even as we celebrate, the most daunting task of our lifetime lays before us.  I am proud that I was part of this change not only in leadership, but also in the outlook of our nation.  American apathy towards politics and leaders plagued us for too long and we are just as guilty as the politicians for the present circumstances.  More of us could have protested, more of us could have turned out at previous elections, and more of us could have donated time to improving our communities.  For too long we have felt hostage to our leaders.  Well no more.

The burden of improving this country lies not only with our leaders, but also with each individual.  I will be doing what I can to take the momentum from this election and contribute in everyway I can.  I will volunteer when I can, support businesses that value their employees and environment, and voice my concerns when poor policies are being made.

There is one thing that everyone can do without any effort.  Just understand that we live in consumer driven society and that every dollar is a vote.  Companies count your “votes” and from those tallies they will deliver the products and services you want.  When you pay $5 for tabloid magazines you are voting for vanity and exploitation.  Purchasing a BMW M3 over a Ford Focus means you care $50,000 more about what kind of car you drive than your children’s education or your favorite charity.  When you pay extra for US versus foreign made products you are supporting the American worker.  Each of us has a limited number of votes and where you choose to spend those votes will help determine what kind of jobs, economy, and policies we have.

All right, diatribe over.  Now lets just look forward to turning this great day into a great era.

…a full 3 hours later I had my design.  This isn’t because finding pictures of Pac-Man costumes is difficult, in fact they are on the first results page, but there are just certain things you do on the internet that prompt you to click a link, and then another link, and then another, until you’ve gone so far down the rabbit-hole that you can figure out how the page you are currently at even relates to where you started.  Google image searching is one of them, Wikipedia is another, and of course the best-of-class time sink, StumbleUpon.

On this particular rampage I started with Pac-Man and ended up with reading about the life of Chuck Taylor.  The link from Pac to Chuck is through Thundercats (Hoooo!).

I blurred his bits...it was disturbing

After seeing my childhood hero in chucks I got to thinking how many times I’ve seen these shoes in movies, or on musicians, etc and started looking around. Of course with a broad search topic like “converse in movies” you can essentially kiss a few hours goodbye. Toward the end of that string I hit this site: The Chucks Connection.

Elijah Wood has worn chucks in more movies than any other actor

This site’s creator has donated a lot of time to researching Converse shoes.  For 10 years he was been collecting information about chucks in movies and TV, along with personal stories and shoe lacing guides.  It’s really quite amazing how much time he has devoted to one item and it’s pretty interesting (well if you’re on the nerdy side, but lets face it, most people who don chucks are, self included).  I had no idea that chucks were so pervasive in media.  The Chucks Connection is what finally led me to the Wikipedia entry for Chuck Taylor where my time sink ended…for now.

All in all it was a pretty good day.  The Pac-Man suit got finished, a pretty incredible Halloween party followed, and I now know enough information about chucks to maybe come in hand someday on Jeopardy.  What is Charles Hollis Taylor? FTW!

I suddenly feel the need to eat some fruit

I had been coasting through life in Austin.  I’ve had the same friends and same job for long time.  My life was more like a river that I was just tubing down, enjoying the view with a cold one in hand and an occasional rapid to keep things interesting.  Now that I’m on Mountain Standard Time I find myself realizing that everyday actions are shaping my future.  I thought, like many, that moving would provide a clean slate from which to build the perfect existence.  I’ve got the clean slate but the idea of rebuilding a group of friends and finding a new job is too daunting.  The idea that meeting someone new or getting a new job could irrevocably change my life prevents me from making new friends and finding a better job – what if I don’t like where it’s all headed.

Fortunately there have been enough distractions to not have to worry about all of this too much.  I’ve spent a month and half of the last three traveling for business and two of the weekends have been filled with people from Texas coming for a visit (more come please).  This last weekend Meaghan’s parents came up and we showed them around town.  It was a little difficult to be tour guides when we are still tourists ourselves.  While we may not know the best restaurants or shops, you can rely on the mountains to entertain guests.

On Sunday we drove over to Estes Park and then up into Rocky Mountain National Park.  The park contains the highest highway in the US and it goes straight up to the tundra above the tree line.  With Meaghan’s Mom in the backseat gasping at every winding corner, we drove up into the mountains to breathtaking views.  While it may have been 75F at the foot of the mountains, it was in the 30s at the top and windy.  It’s amazing that anything manages to live up there.

The ruggedness is what makes it so appealing.  I know that when it gets a little colder and the snow a little thicker, I’ll be wanting the challenge that the tundra provides.

So what does this all mean?  It means that currently I’m happy to distract myself from finding new friends and from finding a new job in order to get to know myself better and discover what challenges Colorado has to offer me.  I think I’ll be perfectly content with snowboarding, backpacking, cayaking, and rock climbing and hopefully along the way, direction will find me.

If you liked Black Flag, or have seen his spoken word DVDs, then you absolutely must read some of his books.  The Black Coffee Blues series is a good place to start.  While I don’t recommend that anyone follow the Tao of Rollins to the T, the way he attacks life is inspiring.  If I could incorporate even a pinky’s worth of Rollins I’d be benching 250, finishing my first novel, and on a plane to Okinawa right now.

Vote for Obama

Oh and it will be my birthday too, so vote first and then do your part to stimulate the economy by purchasing me a nice present.

Recently I have found my self inspired.  Slowly micro-blogging sites like twitter (ithangover) have gotten me accustomed to the idea of sharing my thoughts publicly and other blogs like Chris’, and various podcasts have made me want to take advantage of the free press that is the Internet before it becomes overly censored.  Plus, as long as everyone else is allowed to spew their mind garbage onto the intertubes, then I’ll do my part to end traditional writing and journalism.

I don’t know what it is about traveling that compels me to write or better yet regular life that prevents me from writing, but here I am again on another business trip journaling. Alaska this time. I was almost a little scared when I first heard of this trip. Where I’m going is just another city, but that’s not what you think about when envisioning Alaska.

The name conjures up visions of the last American wilderness from lame spotted owls to fierce wolves, grizzlies, and polar bears, oh and the highest suicide rate.

Unfortunately I’m only going to be there for 24 hours. Of course 19 hours of that will be daylight so I’ll probably just push through and try to see as much as I can while I’m here. Tomorrow I have to perform a site survey for company a. Should be easy, schmooze some old company b manager, scan a bunch of equipment and hopefully three hours later – I’m out. I have a rental car, and I plan on testing the “unlimited in town mileage”. Currently my record stands at 900 kilometers for a 24-hour rental.

I’ll have to do some research this evening while sitting in my jacuzzi tub and find out what to do. Alaska has always one of those places I wanted to go, but not to do anything in particular. I don’t find whale watching interesting and I don’t find cold beaches interesting for very long. And yet, this is a place I have always wanted to visit. Maybe I’ll start south around Anchorage or Juno and just start heading north until I can’t take it any more. My idea of an ideal vacation in Alaska is more like a Jack London novel – camp with wolves, befriend one who later saves my life, and then eventually leave after having been challenged and learned valuable life lessons.

Or…I’ll see what bars in northern latitudes are like.

View from hill above Anchorage, AK

Yesterday after having a great conversation with an Australian by the name of Mark Stewart while here in Melbourne my music curiosities were awakened.  We walked around the local JB Hi-Fi, a record and video store, and showed each other bands that each liked.  There was a surprising similarity given our age and background differences.  He recommended an old school Australian punk band named Radio Birdman and I picked up an anthology of theirs from 1974-78. So far I like the album, very much like the clash, sex pistols and doors, very raw.  For whatever reasons, this new awaking in music made me want to open other avenues in my dormant mind.  I walked the streets for a while and came across a bookstore and purchased How To Be Good by Nick Hornby and Do I Come Here Often? by Henry Rollins.  By the way, next time I decide to get back into literature, do not do it in Australia.  Each book costs $24.95, but oh well its an investment in a new chapter in my life (pun unintentional, but I’m trying to make it a policy not to press the delete key in this journal).

I’ve nearly polished off Henry Rollins.  His unforgiving attitude is inspirational.  The man never stops, always on the lookout for the next opportunity to punish himself into action.  It is strange that all through the book he talks of how he hates himself and is depressed, yet somehow you still wish to live your life his way.  He has these Todd Dowd like stories where he meets with Jerry Lee Lewis, John Lee Hooker, David Lee Roth and travels all over the world meeting incredible people, you can’t help but try to incorporate some of that into you life.  Henry is the reason I have started journaling again. As I age I find myself having foggy memories and displaced timelines.  I believe forcing myself to recant from time to time will make me sharper, more introspective, and as a nice side affect a better writer.

Anyway, with Henry nearly gone, I for some reason decide that I’m not going to have enough to read given I have a week left here in Australia and a long flight home.  This makes no sense since I brought nearly 2000 pages of text with me, but none of this seemed to be of a fine enough pedigree for my newly awakened mind so its off to the book store again.  This time I pick up The Book of Dave by Will Self and Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk.  After reading the first chapters I believe these will do nicely.

I do worry that all this literacy will lead me to being an elitist asshole.  I already feel that better than thou personal creeping around the corner.  It feels good.  It’s a quality that I sometimes admire in Meaghan when its might isn’t directed at me.  The alternative is to be some philistine who rants in coffee shops ignorantly.  I hate that guy.  Two of them were in the café tonight discussing how music can change lives.  That much I believe, but their arguments were mundane and painful to listen to.  I have heard more thought provoking conversations about beer alcoholic content percentages across state lines.

Anyway, this entry is already becoming much longer than I intended, I will sum up with the actions of today.  I woke up but hit the snooze several time because I decided it would be a good idea to stay up and watch Return of the King last night.  After a few cups of coffee it was off to Telstra to do the same boring shit and write down part number upon part number.  Fortunately, do to some bureaucracy about forms and such the day was cut off around 11AM because we didn’t have access to the last floor of the audit.  I had a bit of lunch with my Vision Stream helper mentioned previously Mark Stewart which reminds me, I owe him $10 from lunch.  Got my hair cut by a perfectionist barber, and then read the rest of the day when I should have been working.  All in all, it’s been a great day.  So great that I have only just now come back to my loneliness and longing for home.

Whenever I travel I usually spend most of my time walking the streets.  This time however my luck has not landed me any place special.  My shoes seem to be keeping to the path of least resistance.  I leave my hotel with no particular place in mind, head in a seaming random direction and yet I find myself staring into the same shop windows and passing the same restaurants.  I fear the next time I walk through China Town I will need to introduce myself to this one hostess that I have passed several times.

I hate talking to people when I travel, preferring to observe and pass judgments alone.  Yet, I find myself fantasizing about some extraverted person seeing my loneliness and dragging me to all the places that I am missing.  I know that somewhere in this city of millions there must be a 24-hour coffee shop.  There must be a dive bar where the jukebox is good.  I punish my blackberry and all its infinite connectivity with keywords that should evoke the address of the places I seek, but to no avail.  So now 9000 miles from home its fast food, a book, and a bed.  Maybe I’m not so far at all.

There is one understandable difference between coach and first class and that is the fact that all drinks and food are all included with the ticket price. However how that food is served goes back to my model that first class service is not improved, coach is simply depraved. Petroleum products rule in coach – plastic and styrofoam their weapons of choice. In the front of the plane it’s all glass, ceramic, and warm towels (wtf, are these really necessary). The warm towel along with free liquor I believe are the only two true luxuries that first class enjoys, and by luxury I mean something that is pleasant but wholly unnecessary. So I covered the flatware, but what about the contents of said flatware. When was the last time you were even offered a breakfast quesadilla with fruit, much less on an airplane? Well that’s what we had.

I will now finish off on perhaps my greatest pet peeve about coach. This is going to seem silly to most but the fact that they had to specially design a price of equipment to make people lives less comfortable just makes me mad. Have any guesses what I am referring to? It’s the headphone jack. I don’t know how many have noticed the headphone jack on an airplane seeing as the music stations and movies that airplanes proved are crap, but it in no way resembles the hole on your cd player, stereo, etc. Instead it is replaced by this two prong monstrosity that is only usable by purchasing the airlines headphones! So even if you have your own headphones, you are out of luck. They purposely made a new type of socket that only their headphones would fit. Now here is the great part. In first class not only are the headphones free, but the jack in first class is your standard old headphone jack that any old pair will plug into.

It just boggles my mind that they would go the trouble of changing the jacks in coach. I mean, here these people are sitting too close to a stranger, trying to block out the kid kicking their chair behind them because the seats are so close together that a toddler with 18 inch legs can reach your chair. All they want is to watch the in-flight movie to block out the screaming kid and so they don’t have to converse with the stranger who keeps making small talk.

But no, instead you’re getting kicked in the back, you spill your coffee because it’s in a styrofoam cup that has no handle, which makes it look like you wet your pants.  So you walk to the lavatory to try to get the stain out, but there is a line because there are only two bathrooms to service 150 people who just got their one beverage. Finally in the bathroom you reach in your pocket to find that your money is soaked. You pull it out only to drop it into the blue liquid of death and there is no way that you are reaching in to get back a $5 bill. Clothes now wet, but hopefully stain free you walk, or should I say squirm back to your seat. The kid behind you is now screaming and you call for the stewardess to complain that there is no place to plug your headphones in to watch the movie. She says that’s because the headphones are $5 and you reach into your pocket and remember. Dejected and damp you succumb to the fate before you.

That is not me today though. Through a miraculous computer glitch my original flight was overbooked and I had to be moved to another flight on which the only open seat was in first class, so here I sit, in a chair befit a normal size human, a chair worthy of the price of even a coach ticket. Now that I have been to the top of the mountain, I am afraid that the view anywhere else just can’t compare.

Yes this rant is finally over.

It’s been a while since I’ve been to a truly large city. I had always thought of Austin as being a fairly large city, but Austin is like a ¼ scale version of Philly. For all its size, it has a very quaint feel to it. The traffic is not atrocious, there are lots of people walking around and riding their bikes and it has all the comforts of home. There is an area on South Street that is pretty much like the Drag and 6th Street combined. There are venues, an Urban Outfitters, bums, and punks – pretty much felt like home. I said the traffic wasn’t atrocious, however that says nothing for the parking. The lack of cars on the road is more than made up for by the number of cars hogging the spots in which I would like to park my rental. After about 45 minutes of searching for parking I finally found a spot that I thought was close to everything…….but it wasn’t. Fortunately the rather long walk from my car to City Hall may have been one of the best experiences. Simply walking down a non touristy street admiring the townhomes and walking among the residents was somehow very calming. I’d pause every now and then to take a picture, but on the whole just walk around and pretend I was walking from my townhome to the Whole Foods or something…..for which they have two that I discovered in my journey around town.

One thing that is always great about being in the northeast is that even just walking down the street you are surrounded by history. Random statues are littered all about the city, not to mention that every building probably dates back a couple hundred years. I think they may have gone a little overkill on the Benjamin Franklin however. He’s got a street, a bridge, a building, a monument, several smaller statues, and that’s only the stuff I saw in a 4 hour walk around a fairly limited part of downtown. I didn’t even have a chance to make it over to Independence Hall yet (drove by, but as I said before….no parking) where he no doubt has more crap. Of course almost equal to Ben is Rocky as far as presence goes. Rocky has spawned several knockoff names that appear on billboards like Rocco’s Collision Repair, Italian Stallion Pizza’s, and he too has a statue. And while we are on the topic, yes I did run up the steps where Rocky once tread. I was not alone in this. I would be willing to bet that more people have run up those stairs like Rocky than have been in the art museum to which the stairs lead (which is currently showing works by Dali). There used to be a statue of Rocky atop the stairs, but I was very disappointed to find that all that is left of the statue is a pair of footprints. After much fighting about it not being nothing more than a prop and not deserving to share the plaza with the art museum, it now rests outside of the arena football team’s stadium. I did come across an interesting quote while looking up where the statue was, “Commerce Director Dick Doran was thrilled with the gift saying Stallone had done more for the city’s image ‘than anyone since Ben Franklin’“.

There’s not much else that I can describe about this experience in Philly. I went and saw other things, but that was secondary to the importance you feel just walking around in the same places where so many pivotal moments in history have taken place.

Today I pretty much just stuck to touristy stuff, tomorrow I plan on hitting one more touristy thing, Independence Hall, and then go on a search for two things that make me very happy while in a foreign town:

1.A nice cafe with Internet and comfortable couches
2.A nice bar with good music and very few people

Beyond that, most of tomorrow will be spent doing the thing I actually came to Philly for and that is my job and the business of testing some equipment. Speaking of, I should probably be bedding down because I have to be up at 7AM. I have another rant I must go on about food in Delaware, but that will have to wait…..can you feel the suspense….me neither.