A whole new world

Electro^plankton directed me to this guy singing both parts of the Aladdin song. I deem it impressive.

Pictures from the Drive East

I finally uploaded some pictures from my drive from California to Missouri. We drove out of Redwood City to make stops at Tahoe, CA, Wendover, UT, Salt Lake City, UT, Arches National Park, Moab, UT, Grand Junction, CO, Boulder, CO, Denver, CO, Council Grove Lake, KS, and Manhattan, KS.

Have a joyful Thanksgiving everyone!

Schooling

I just stumbled upon this story about a parent and their experience with their 7th grade sons science class. The man was driven to take up home school teaching of science the next year. I am a little surprised at how long it took the man to actually find out why his son was getting a C-, but when he did find out it was because 80% of the grade was having an "organized" science notebook. It also seems clear that the teachers main goal is to prepare the students for the state wide standardized test. Well, you can get the whole story from his post.

I am very thankful that most of my teachers throughout my schooling experience were very good at what they did. The ones that were excellent and engaged me are very memorable. I would visit them after class, and be involved during class. I didn't realize then just how lucky I was. The ones that approached the poor teacher described here I grated under. Assignments that were silly and lessons that were insipid drove me nuts. In middle school and high school I never got any Cs, but I did get at least one D because I just couldn't stand the teacher and the pointlessness of the assignments.

I kind of dread the school system I will have to deal with as a parent. If nothing shakes up the current system, who knows what it will be like in the future.

Tetris Mania

Slip Sliding Away

My senior year in high school I did some volunteer work at the City Museum in St. Louis. They had a large slide from the second floor to the first. I enjoyed going down quite a bit, as did many of the visitors. Perhaps in the future there will be more of this. Judging my this link, perhaps it is not so far away.

Rickrolled

Following this link may annoy you.

Long Time, No Post

I haven't been in the mood for much blogging, partly because things are fairly busy.

A few weeks Daniel came up and visited for a few days. I took two days off of work and we headed up to San Francisco. We hiked about ten miles exploring the city. Then in the evening we met up with Ed and Kathy Wyss and their family for dinner in China Town.

The next day we visited Ocean Beach and Golden Gate Park before driving up to Muir Woods. I hadn't been up to see the coastal redwoods for a few years, and they are awe inspiring.

My last trip to LA went well, it was very busy. I stayed with Joe and Sue Klotzle. Joe and I walked down and along the beach during the day, and it was packed. Saturday evening we went to the Hollywood Bowl to see the LA philharmonic. Sunday afternoon the Aberles took me to The Museum of the American West in Griffith Park.

Who is Snape?

I found this fascinating (to Harry Potter fans) look at the character of Snape. It is written by one of my favorite authors, Orson Scott Card. All you Harry Potter fans out there do know that the new book is coming July 21, and we can finally have this story wrapped up. I won't be camping out for it, but Amazon is delivering it to me on the day of.

One of my favorite passages from the essay is, "As for Harry dying in the process of killing Voldemort -- well, she could do that, but she won't enjoy going through the rest of her life without a single literate person ever speaking to her again."

On a totally unrelated note I found this article about Palestinian children's television programming. I have attempted to form a post about it, but have failed.

Perspective

Now, if I could only get something like this in my apartment.

American, Canceled

I am getting pretty fed up with American Airlines. Yesterday, Dad was supposed to fly out from St. Louis to San Francisco. When he arrived at the airport they informed him that the flight had been canceled. There was no call to him beforehand that this would happen. The earliest they offered to get him out was tonight. So he missed one of the four days he is going to have with his newest grandson and west coast family.

Earlier this year as Mom, Dad, and I were flying back to San Francisco from Maui through Los Angeles we had a similar problem. We flew the red eye to LA and had an two hour layover. As we were sitting there at the gate we saw on the monitor that the gate had changed. Then in a few minutes the flight was canceled. They made no announcement over the speaker, just waited for the mob of angry people to go to the other gate. Of course everyone still wants to get to SFO, but there are no other American flights that can hold that many people. After a very tense few hours we did get them to put us on a Frontier flight from another terminal, that we barley had enough time to get to, and go through security. Of course our bags did not make it with us.

It is bad enough the way they cancel flights with no warning, and no replacement flight. But what really gets my goat is the contempt with which they treat those inconvenienced. They act surprised that you still want to travel to the same destination. Of course there are not enough seats on other flights to carry a full plane load of people. They make no attempt to contact those whose flight no longer exists.

I don't have these problems with Southwest, or any other airline I use. I cannot remember what else I was angry about, but in LA I recounted a litany of previous problems.

I am to the point that I will spend quite a bit more on other airlines to avoid American Airlines.

Noah

Noah Clayton Schrenk. Date: 06-23-2007. Weight: 7# 8 oz. Length: 19.0". Color Hair: Black. Status: Healthy.

Upcoming Family

Mom is flying in to the Bay tomorrow morning, and Kathy should be checking into the hospital in the evening. Hopefully this weekend there will be a new Schrenk.

Global Warming

My brother, Peter, sent this link out to some of the family and I think it is pretty clever. It is one of those ideas that after you hear it think, "that is so obvious, why didn't I think of that." The main idea is to tie carbon emissions taxes to an agreed upon measure of global warming. That way if warming happens, the tax goes up, otherwise the tax goes down. Seems very reasonable.

Fire Alarm

Having never lived in a large building before, I am experiencing my first late night fire alarm. The ringing is starting to get on my nerves. Overall it is about ten times worse then random car alarms going off late at night.

Wheelchair + Semi = ?

It could have been a tragic story, but instead the unexpected happened. No one was hurt. And this is the BBC article, so lorry = semi.

"He refused to believe there was a man in a wheelchair stuck to the front of his truck until he saw it for himself, police said."

Bocking

So bocking looks like it could be quite exciting. This video is mostly jumps, but it is also possible to run at a good clip with these. After 4:50 there is some cursing, but this is one of the better videos I could find. After that they just seem to blather, so there is really no reason to finish the video.

Busy Weekend

This has been a good weekend up in the Bay Area. Yesterday I spent most of the day scoping out windsurfing locations, and shopping for windsurfing gear. I found a store up near SFO that sells winter and summer board sports. Comparing the size of the windsurf gear to the kitesurfing stuff was almost enough to make me switch sports. For windsurfing you need a fairly large board, mast, boom, and sail. All of this together is quite a lot of volume. They sell the kites in a backpack, and the boards are small enough to fit easily into a trunk. I did end up buying a package including a Hifly Mambo board and a 6.3 m² X-Ride sail.

This morning I was invited to the annual Shoreline service of the Bay Area Christian Church down in Mountain View. The service ran from 11-1 and was interesting. It seems that every year this church rents out the Shoreline Amphitheater and has a big service. Afterward many people have their picnic lunches, listen to music, and fellowship.

This afternoon I carted my gear up to Foster City to test out my new board and rig. There was some sort of big carnival going on in the park next to where I windsurf, and the street was closed off. I eventually found another way around. It took me a little while, and some help to get my gear ready for the water, but when I did it was great. This is the biggest sail I have yet used, and the board is about as small as I have tried before, but for the first hour and a half there was enough wind to really get going. I am pumped, and will be looking forward to trying out new areas now that I am not tied to the rental location. My arms are very tired, and I want to get and learn how to use a harness soon. I will probably pick up a used sail to try that out on, because I will be pretty sad if I fall through my new sail.

I Can See My House From Here.

Well, not really. But I can see Times Square, Coors Field, The Monte Carlo, Orange Bowl Stadium, the Palace of Fine Arts, and San Francisco from the Golden Gate Bridge. This new Google maps "street view" feature is impressive. As this service gets rolled out more it will make it a bit easier to find that address that you have never been to. Although, I have to say, I couldn't really find anything to see in Miami from the car.

I look forward to my virtual vacations through the internet with this. And when the Google van drives by, be sure to smile.

Processing

I just finished watching "Garden State" and I enjoyed pretty much every minute of it. It was very well done, the music, script, camera work, and especially the acting. It will take a little while longer to process it.

More Hydrofoil Goodness

This looks like quite the workout. It also looks like a lot of fun.

The Sheriff's Office

Tonight I rode my bike up to the entrance of my building and there were two men standing at the door considering the resident list. This is not unusual. "Perhaps he doesn't live here anymore," one says. As they hear me behind them they turn around and ask if I am going in. After answering in the affirmative, one of them flashes a badge, "We are with the sheriff's office, perhaps we can enter with you." So I let them in and cart my bike upstairs as they take the elevator.

24 Hours of Games

Between my two trips up to KublaCon I believe that I managed a little over 24 at the convention. Today I had a game arranged to play right when I arrived, but after that none of the planned events really caught my interest. After wandering around looking for something I was almost ready to leave, and was doing one last walk through of the open game area when I found two people looking to play Power Grid. We rounded up one other person and had a good session. As I walked away from that table I found a few people setting up Pirate's Cove. So we had a fun time adventuring on the high seas. I pulled out Bang! after that and we played games until after 2:00 AM. I even got to play the expansion Dodge City for the first time.

I call the weekend a success.

KublaCon

Today I spent a little over 12 hours at KublaCon up by SFO. This is my first game convention and I am having a blast. St. Louis doesn't have any game conventions to my knowledge. I mostly played a variety of board games and then a game of Exalted from 5 to 10.

I think I will head back tomorrow after church for some more. I hope everyone is having a great weekend.

Hydrofoil

It doesn't even look real.

Honor Killing

Du'a Khalil Aswad, 17, killed by her family and neighbors. Killed for being seen with a Sunni Muslim man. Suspected and therefore guilty. So called "Honor Killing". I see only dishonor in this. I cannot fathom how dark is the heart of man. Now with technology those involved can use their cell phone camera to record these actions and share it with the world. Because stoning a young woman in your community is something that needs to be boasted about and shared. A culture so warped that a fundamental change is needed to possibly make any progress.

CNN reports, "The killing is said to have spurred the killings of about two dozen Yazidi men by Sunni Muslims in the Mosul area two weeks later."

Hate cannot be conquered by more hate. Romans 12:21 "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good."

Pressing toward the mark

Ben has a blog, titled "Pressing toward the mark", about his trip to New Zealand. I added a link to it over on the right, but thought I would mention it here. He has some great pictures of mostly plants and has some nice long posts. Check it out.

From Vegas

Right now I am in McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. I was pleased to find that they offer free internet. So flying through Vegas or Phoenix is a fairly pleasant experience. I have never been to Vegas before, and my current trip here consists of this one hour layover. Looking out the plane window the city seems to consist of massive sprawl, the Strip, and not much else.

You are now leaving Las Vegas.

Mango Run

After windsurfing this afternoon I went on a dried mango run to Costco. My parents had requested some, so I got a few bags for them and one for me. If you haven't tried dried mango then you are missing out. I believe that they are better then any sugary candy out there. Delicious.

Bike to Work Day

Today was Bike to Work Day here in the Bay Area. So I joined in and did just that, which is not an unusual activity as I have blogged before. I really like the exercise it gives me, and the fresh air. At work I have a window open looking over the back yard garden of Nathan and Kathy. The weather here is great, and I try to make the most of it.

This weekend I will be traveling to St. Louis while Nathan, Kathy, and Arthur head down to San Diego.

Family Game Night

After Arthur has gone to bed Nathan, Kathy, and I will play a board game one to two nights a week. It is quiet enough to not wake up Arthur and is very engaging. The table seems very well balanced, with each of us winning about the same percentage of games.

Some of our long time favorites are St. Petersburg and Carcassonne. We have just started playing some Puerto Rico, and just finished tonight with a win for Kathy. I thought I had it sewn up, but she was just ahead. Last week we invited over two other players and tried out Modern Art, which is really fun and I might buy it, but unfortunately needs 4 to 5 players. Nathan just purchased Funkenschlag (or for us Americans "Power Grid"). Some of my other all time favorite games are Bang!, The Settlers of Catan, and Illuminati.

I think the family game night is great fun that can be had on the cheap. It can take anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours+ and increases discussion and interaction.

Donuts for the Class

I stumbled across this story and thought it was pretty good.

Sunny, Windy LA

I spent the weekend down in LA staying with the Mosers near the beach. On Saturday we had 5 people for a few games of beach volleyball on the unusually windy beach. That night was a church singing up at the Grafs, with a pretty strong showing. The root beer floats afterward were delicious. Often when inviting a group to Brown House I would server floats. They work well for an unknown size group because it is easy to make the appropriate number when the guests are there. They are also just so tasty.

Nothing super exciting going on otherwise.

Sandy Eggo

Last weekend in San Diego was fun. Dad was at an ophthalmological conference at the big convention center there. Flying into town is very nice, with the airport right new downtown. They have a good number of hotels near the convention center, with restaurants to boot. We stayed in the Westin right next to the Gaslamp quarter.

Balboa park is beautiful and impressive. I would really like to spend some more time there, and it would be a great place to bike around. There was a lot of activity there on Saturday, and the architecture of the buildings and museums is worth getting across town to see it.

Sunday morning we drove up to Escondido where the AC church is. I had met a few of the young members who visited up to Altadena on a few occasions. I will have to get down to the far south to revisit.

On Sunday afternoon we took the short tour of the U.S.S. Midway which has been converted into a carrier museum. I wish we could have spent more time there, but we got in 1 hour and 15 minutes before they closed. I had not realized just how much of a navy town San Diego is. There were many navy ships docked all around the bay. Mom and I spent some time in Marina Park watching all the sailboats, jet skies and Motorboats cruising around.

I forgot my camera, so perhaps I will be able to steal some from Mom. It was not enough time to absorb more then a taste of the city, and I shall return.

Becalmed

This weekend I am off to San Diego for the first time ever. My parents are down there and I am going to spend the weekend with them.

This afternoon after work I tried some more windsurfing. I am moving down to a smaller board, which is a little tricker, but not too much. The wind today was almost non-existent. I moved up to a 4.5 square meter sail and was just getting enough wind to move a bit. As it got later the wind got calmer, so I started to learn how to tack. I was able to do it a few times. It will be pretty cool to be able to tack at greater speed and in higher wind. As I get that down I also plan to attempt the jibe, which is much more difficult.

Wild and Crazy Weather

It was an exciting weekend in Yosemite. Breathtaking, beautiful, rainy, cold, snowy. Yea. We got to our campsite on Friday evening and cooked up some english muffin pizzas over the fire. I thought I had come prepared for cold, but it was a little bit colder then I had imagined. I was wearing my warmest clothing all weekend.

Saturday morning the women attended a photography class/walk around the valley, and the guys headed up to mirror lake. That is where I got the photos with the mountain reflections. After lunch everyone took a short nap. We then took a hike over to Yosemite falls and caught the shuttle back to camp as the rain started. We had dinner under a camp gazebo as the rain poured down. After falling asleep to the rain splashing on the tent I woke up to an odd noise of something wet and heavy sliding down the sides of the tent. I heard Nathan moving around outside and asked what he was doing. He said, "You do know that it is snowing." Packing up camp with just one pair of gloves shared between Nathan and I was no picnic. We were not interested in doing anything in the valley today.

So, after the five hour trip back I headed to my apartment to relax a little. But the day was not over yet, so I headed out to Foster City Lagoon and got there about 4:00. I still had time for two hours of windsurfing before heading home. It was still light out by the time I got back. I love daylight savings time.

I finally uploaded pictures from my two trips during March.

I love Yosemite in the springtime

I am psyched to hit Yosemite tomorrow and spend the weekend camping. We are leaving early afternoon and driving east. It will be my third time visiting the valley, and the waterfalls should be gushing. In the past I have stayed in a house, so it will be a little different in a tent. Now that winter is pretty much over outdoor activities are in full swing here in Northern California.

We are going to listen either to A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Solider or On the Road on the drive to and from the valley. I haven't been listening to many books recently, so I gotta catch up and use my Audible credits.

Talk to you after the weekend.

You Get What You Need

This morning I listened to the morning service from Altadena using skype. I was going to listen to the afternoon service, however when I tried to call back both lines were busy. So instead I read Mark 13, which is for April 15 on the bible reading plan my parents and I are doing. I was struck by verse 11: "But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost." I found it encouraging that in times of trial the Holy Ghost will be there to give us words to speak and help us.

This afternoon I hit the Foster City Lagoon once more and had a real blast windsurfing. Once I actually sailed across, turned around by tacking, and sailed back across the lagoon without falling. Today I was able to go much faster for longer periods. My turning is getting better while sailing, but doing a 180 degree turn is still fairly difficult.

Next weekend the California Schrenks are heading off to Yosemite for some camping and hiking. It should be a relaxing time.

Oh, Joy. I get to spend a lot of time today working on my taxes, *sigh*.

High Wind

This afternoon I went out windsurfing for about half an hour before I conceded defeat to the wind. I am pleased with my costco wetsuit and life vest purchases.

I will try again tomorrow after church services.

Pain

I am pretty much recovered from the weekend (my hip is still a little twingy). However, for about a week and a half now my shoulder has been hurting. I think it might have been exasperated from holding the sail, but it started before that. This morning I moved it around, and thought that riding my bike would be no problem. I found out that it hurts the most in the position I old it when riding my bike, hmmm.

Awwwwwwwww

Cannot resist the cuteness. I really like that I get to see Arthur everyday, but I only get to see these girls a couple times a year.

I am hooked.

Kathy got some pictures of me today. Here is one that represents the light wind in the lagoon. I am hooked, and plan to get out there next Saturday for some more.

Totally Beat

It is a little difficult to even stand up right now after windsurfing today. My upper body just aches, and I know that in the morning I will really feel this. It is a very good workout all over the body. Hopefully in the future my knees won't be so bruised up as I get better and don't need to hop on the board so many times.

Happy Easter everyone!

Surfing the wind

Peter and I set up a windsurfing lessen when we were on Maui, but on the day of the lesson we called in and found out that the wind was not cooperating, so we weren't able to go. I was pretty stoked about it, so yesterday I called into California Windsurfing, which is real close to me at the Foster City Lagoon. They set me up with some lessons this weekend, and I started today at noon.

I had been windsurfing once before with just a short one day lesson with Nathan and Kathy a number of years ago, but I don't remember too much from that lesson. So it was pretty much all new for me. During the lesson today I was able to stand up on the board, and get the sail up. I even was able to sail for about a minute 3 or so times. I really enjoyed it, and plan to keep going out.

I am not quite doing what the guy in the picture is doing just yet :)

Aloha

I am back from Hawai'i and sitting in my apartment after a very full week. I plan on doing some real posting after I settle in some. Judging by other blogs, many people seem to have enjoyed their Spring time trip.

Why do I always have to recover from vacation?

Air Car

Ok, who else thinks this is great? A car running on compressed air that will go for 200-300km and costs 1/10 the amount of gas. If there isn't a local car air compressor refill station it takes 3-4 hours off of 220V electricity. If there is a local compressor station, it takes minutes. The article makes it sound like this is actually going into real production soon.

The best part is the price of 5,500 pounds. Although looking at the wikipedia article, it seems this company has been saying they are near production for a while.

Sun and Fog

This afternoon I drove up to the city for a meetup board game group. We met in a little cafe just north of Golden Gate Park. I played a few games of Bang! and one game of Scrabble. All in all a good afternoon. On my way back down I drove along the Great Highway and enjoyed looking out at the sand and ocean. As I reached the southern end of the city it got real foggy, and I missed a turn and had to backtrack.

I always enjoy going up to San Francisco, it is a beautiful city with a lot of character. It has a reals sense of place. The next Saturday I am in the Bay Area I plan to take my bike on the train for the day and bike around the city. Really get a better feel for some of it, and hopefully avoid the bigger hills.

I spent the evening watching Arthur while Nathan and Kathy celebrated their anniversary. He behaved himself pretty well, and was not too much trouble. We watched an episode of Mythbusters, and part of the episode took place on the same beach I was driving along just a few hours before.

St. Patrick's Day

Yesterday I invited the Redwood City Schrenks over for a Corned Beef and Cabbage dinner. I mostly used this recipe, but halved it for 6 servings instead of the massive 12 it is intended for. I should have leftovers for a few days. It really made my apartment smell good having the pot cook for a little over 3 hours.

When I lived at home Mom would cook a similar dish every year around St. Patrick's Day, and so I think I will keep up the tradition. Although it would be just fine with me if the dish didn't contain the cabbage, but it just wouldn't be the same now without it.

Arthur was both excited and afraid of my giant exercise ball, he also figured out how to turn on my fan, which would be followed by running away from it.

DST

This week I have been enjoying the time change. It has encouraged me to get to bed in better time and get to work earlier. In the winter it gets dark at 4:30, so it doesn't really matter when I get to work, it will be dark when I leave. But now it is 7:00 and it is still light outside.

So this afternoon I rode my bike home from work with quite a bit of sun. I was pretty hot when I got to my apartment, so I went for a short swim. My apartment complex has a pool that is about half-olympic size. Getting in was a little cold, but after a few laps it felt fine. Now I am just cooking up some dinner.

Enjoy the DST!

Late Night Radio Talk

Out here on the west coast the late night radio talk shows can be heard just a little earlier. So I can hear a 2am caller from Florida at 11pm here. When I am in my car I find that the call in shows are actually better to listen to then music, because they can keep my mind more engaged and alert. I don't do much driving here at night, but tonight on my 7 minute drive home I listened a little.

They really are a different kind of people who call in at night to these shows. One caller was a repo man waiting for someone to get home to claim the car. The show was about sleeping problems (hence, night call in). The night shows seem to be a lot more personal information then day shows. Shows during the day are much more current events, news and such. All the night shows are personal stories, and I find them fascinating. I enjoy hearing about all the craziness that goes on in everyday America, and the call in shows provide that.

New Format

That is right, I have changed the format of this blog. Now it is country music all the time, 24/7. Wait, no. I just upgraded to bloggers new layout system, and tried to keep the same feel and colors. They made it a lot easier to play around with the look. Tell me what you think.

The weather in Redwood City is beautiful. But, I still need to remember that biking home at 11PM it will still be cold.

Blur

Right now I am sitting in the lobby of a large Holiday Inn in Burbank. I am waiting for a pickup to take me to Malibu for the night, which will be my second trip to Malibu today. It has been a good weekend so far, seeing family. This morning we spent the day at the beach, and the kids loved it. They played a lot in the sand and met some other kids to play with.

Hope your weekend is as nice.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I cannot stand Windows, almost as much as I can't stand ATI drivers!

World in Turmoil

Invasion in Europe! Oh, the humanity!

This is a little reassuring: "A spokesman for the Liechtenstein authorities said: 'It's not like they invaded with attack helicopters.'"

You can only imagine what sort of damage 171 Swiss soldiers with those little knives could do to Liechtenstein.

Pixels

I believe that some people have a little too much time on their hands... I laughed a lot.

DDR

Part of my regular exercise is playing some DDR during the week. It is some pretty good exercise, and can get my heart rate up during a half-hour session. However, during play I am either barely working up a sweat, or collapsing on the ground exhausted after a very difficult song.

Not too much this last week. My main desktop computer is running windows off of a RAID array that is striped across two disks. This is very dangerous, because if either disk fails then I will loose all my data. So I bought some new drives and am planning on having them mirrored to back up my data. Suffice it to say, that after much wrangling and fighting with windows I cannot seem to get a stable install of windows on those new drives. I actually broke my current install for a while, but finally figured out how to fix it, and am back to the original drives for now. It has been a major pain all week for me.

Furniture

I have been looking at picking up a SuperSac for my apartment, perhaps off of craigslist. This chair is also pretty impressive. So if you are gift shopping for me... take note :). The $800 price tag puts me off of it a little.

On the razer's edge

Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain.

Sunny and Warm

On Thursday and Friday I rode my bike to and from work. The weather is great here. Today Nathan, Kathy, Arthur and I hiked a few miles. It was my first time carrying Arthur in his new backpack, and it is pretty comfortable. He is growing so big so fast. These larger child backpacks start to have some serious engineering with structural support and many straps.

Now, I am just enjoying a quiet weekend.

Oh Boy, This Weather

Wait, I no longer live in the Midwest... so I don't have to contend with the cold or snow.

I really feel for all you living the the frosty center of this great country, feel free to come visit cloudy, rainy Redwood City.

Berkeley and Such

OK, busy weekend. My parents flew in from St. Louis on Friday night. They spent the night at my apartment on my guest air mattress. My Dad had an Ophthalmology meeting up in San Francisco very early on Saturday, so he took the rental car up. Mom and I got up a little later and headed over to see Nathan, Kathy, and Arthur. The poor little man had been sick for a few days, and that was sad, but he was happy to see his Grandma. Mom and I took Caltrain to SF around noon to meet Dad after his meeting (which ran over 40 minutes late).

We took off across the Bay Bridge to head to Berkeley to meet some Northern California AC's for lunch, fellowship, and a Bible study. We met Jake Plattner along with Jill, Jason, and little Reuben Carr at The Claremont Resort & Spa for a delicious lunch. It is quite the building, very European, and very beautiful. After lunch we drove up into the hills to Jake's house for the Bible study.

My parents and I headed back to Redwood City for a quiet evening with the family and some Italian takeout. After a big lunch at Stacks Mom and Dad headed back to St. Louis, where they arrived safe.

Settlers of Catan Live

I have asked for a reason to buy an XBox 360. Until now there hasn't really been a good answer. Then I saw the screen shots for the new Settlers of Catan Live that is coming to XBox Live. I have to say, if they can really make some slick board game play over the internet, I will have to sign up (and encourage some friends to also). Voice chat is a must for online board games, and Live has that too.

Because BrettspielWelt has the games, but the interface is lacking, and I don't spreken zie deutsch.

Sheep for wood anyone?

Fun with the Internet

I came across a little bit of fun code.

javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI=document.images; DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position='absolute'; DIS.left=Math.sin(R*x1+i*x2+x3)*x4+x5; DIS.top=Math.cos(R*y1+i*y2+y3)*y4+y5}R++}setInterval('A()',5); void(0);

If you go to a page with a lot of images (such as Amazon) and copy and paste the above code into the address bar at the top of your browser, it will move the images about in a pattern.

Happy browsing.

Payable to Bearer

I received one of these checks from a credit card company where they give you $20 if you enroll in their "account protection" racket. In the past I have used this offer to get a few dollars, and then it is possible to cancel after one month. I will probably do the same here.

However, this check caught my attention. It is made out to "Pay to Mr. Matthew J. Schrenk or Bearer". So I guess that anyone could get this $20 and thus sign me up for the protection scheme. I don't think this is in the best interests of the clients of the bank issuing the credit card, and in fact is very much in the interest of the bank. If someone else got the money using this check I might not notice the extra charges for a while, thus being great for the bank.

Oh well, I am not going to turn down the free money.

Groundhog's day

I may not be a groundhog, but riding my bike home this evening, my hands nearly froze through. Lets hope that we don't get the six more weeks of winter.

Note to self: take gloves along in the morning when it might be cold.

Bad News

This just in: Marmaduke is a big dog.

Pictures from November

I also added some pictures from my Mom's collection from the trip Mom and Dad made out to San Francisco in November.

Visiting Grandma

Last night I flew into Lambert-St. Louis International Airport at about 12:50 AM CST. Today Mom, Rachel, Nora, Madeline, and I drove up to Eureka, IL to visit my Grandma Belsley. We had a delicious lunch and spent the afternoon in her condo. It was a good family trip. Madeline was very hungry by the time we got back to STL for dinner. Nora is getting bigger, and the amount of hair she has continues to amaze me.

Baptism

For those of you who don't know, my baptism is this next weekend (Sunday, January 28) at the St. Louis Apostolic Christian Church. If you want more information please contact me.

Holocaust

Last weekend I visited the Museum of Tolerance in Las Angeles. Their main exhibit is a Holocaust tour that progress each tour group through a series of exhibits that teach the history and tell the story of what the holocaust was. The whole tour is very well done, and had a deep impact on me. About half way through I almost started weeping, and it has been years since I really broke down crying.

When I was much younger my family took a trip through Europe and visited one of the concentration camps. It is one of my most vivid memories from that trip, even though at the time I don't think I fully understood what the implications were. One thing that the Museum of Tolerance tour kept stressing was the fact that the supporters of Nazi Germany were regular people, average citizens. And yet they participated in some of the wost evil the world has ever seen. The Nazi hate was so strong that they sacrificed many military resources to attempt the elimination of the Jews, even when losing the war they kept up the "Final Solution".

It reminds me of just how dark the heart of man is, and that without hope, all is lost.

So, you want to deatroy the Earth?

Just be warned, as the page says "This is a guide for those who do not want the Earth to be there anymore."

The page has detailed instructions on methods, equipment, and results on any plans to destroy the earth. For example if you want to pulverize the earth with a blunt instrument it has the equipment section: "You will need: a big heavy rock, something with a bit of a swing to it... perhaps Mars." I find the whole page a pretty good.

And you can relax: "Number of times the Earth has been destroyed: 0". No one is on the scoreboard yet.

Your Eyes Can Deceive You

I like optical illusions, and here is a page with a good number. I think my favorite illusion in the one at the top of this page. I would be tempted to buy a large poster that had that pattern across it. The "Rotating Snakes" image is amazing in that it appears to move so much.

Christmas 2006

I finally got the pictures uploaded from the family trip this Christmas. I didn't take many pictures, because several people along was taking lots of pictures. Perhaps I will get access to some of those and add them to the gallery.

I did end up getting a little bit sick, but only felt bad for about one and a half days. Almost everyone else in the family was hit though.

On the 23rd I flew to St. Louis with Nathan, Kathy, and Arthur. We spent a few days at Mom and Dad's house. On the 25th we drove up to Eureka, IL for the Belsley family Christmas and had the traditional Belsley Christmas dinner (which consists mostly of homemade pizza). We drove back down to STL to fly out the next day for Pittsburgh, PA. There we met Rachel, Josh, Madeline, and Norah. It was a long drive, over six hours, down to Williamsburg, VA where we were spending the week. Peter and Liz had flown into a closer airport and met us there. Our first day there we opened up family presents and relaxed at the hotel for most of the day. We did head over to Colonial Williamsburg in the evening to see a drum and fife presentation. Some of the group went on a night tour of the town and herd some of the local ghost legends. Our guide was pretty good, but spoke with her eyes closed. I was expecting her to vanish in a puff of smoke at the end. I would recommend the tour to others.

The next few days we saw more of Williamsburg and headed over to see the archeology site at Jamestown. I am glad that I had just read "John Adams" and the family had listened to a few hours of "1776" before we had flown out. I had never heard of Williamsburg before Mom planned this family trip, and it is a great place to explore colonial US history.

On Saturday we attended the wedding of one of my cousins in Richmond, VA. Mom, Dad, and I headed up to Washington D.C. for church on Sunday. On Sunday afternoon we met up with Nathan and Kathy to see just a few sites in D.C. I had only been to Washington once before when I was a senior in high school. It was a school trip and I didn't get to spend a great deal of time seeing everything I wanted to. This visit was just a few hours, but I really enjoyed it. We had a fabulous New Years Eve dinner at the Old Ebbit Grill across from the treasury building. We did not make it to see Gerald Ford lying in state. Sometime I will get back to spend some time seeing many of the things I want to. I am sure I will not see everything I want to, there is just so much there off the mall.

Then it was up to spend the night at Rachel and Josh's in Quakertown, PA before flying home to San Francisco.

Legacy Systems

I came across this little story of how long one design decision can last, and how far reaching the effects are. Who knew the romans helped with planning the space shuttle boosters.

Still on the Road

I am just back in St. Louis for a few hours and the plane is heading back to SFO soon. I just had lunch with a friend who's grandfather lives next door to my parents. It was quite the family trip, with ups and downs. Sickness at the end of a long trip is disheartening. About half of my family is sick, but I am not. I will do a big update, hopefully tonight or tomorrow with the details of the trip and a few pictures. Our family did get to Williamsburg and Jamestown, VA. We attended my cousin's wedding in Richmond. Spent an afternoon in the nation's capitol, and a night with my Sister and Brother-in-Law in Quakerstown, PA.