Two reminders

Reminder 1: Daylight Savings time returns on Sunday morning. So before you go to bed on Saturday night, remember to put those clocks forward! Though you lose an hour of sleep, it'll be so nice to have lighter evenings to sit inside and watch TV :-DReminder 2: MLS Opening Day is tomorrow! DC United vs. my beloved San Jose Earthquakes. The game features the debut of 14 year old "phenom" Freddy Adu. RFK stadium is completely sold out for the game. So tune into ABC at 1pm PST!

Alistair Cooke 1908-2004

I'm guessing most people who read this won't know who Alistair Cooke is. That said, you may remember him as the host of Masterpiece Theatre or perhaps for his long running radio broadcast "Letter from America." Incredibly he retired only three weeks ago - and only because he was forced too. He was 95 years old. His radio program, a weekly 15 minute reflection on American life. Cooke was warned by the producer that this would last no longer than 26 weeks: in the event, as "Letter from America", it lasted for 58 years, becoming the world's longest-running speech radio programme. Cooke made in total 2869 broadcasts, mostly from his 15th-floor apartment on Fifth Avenue overlooking Central Park. It became a staple of the BBC's domestic and international radio broadcasts. Where there were the hourly "pips", there was Alistair Cooke as well. Although very, very English in every way, he became an American citizen in 1941 and spent most of his later life living in New York. He was given an honorary Knighthood in 1973 and adressed the 200th sitting of Congress the following year. His stories were always engaging, his urbane style kept listeners transfixed. I tried to listen to "Letter from America" on XM whenever I could. Even the other night, I arrived home with about 10 minutes of his broadcast remaining...I sat in my car outside my house until he finished. He also wrote several fantastic books which I urge you to read. Among them is the legendary "Alistair Cooke's America" The BBC has an excellent selection of some of his best broadcasts. Have a listen... I thought his final broadcast would be a fitting tribute: "I have had much enjoyment in doing these talks and hope that some of it has passed over to the listeners, to all of whom I now say thank you for your loyalty and goodbye."

We built this city...

We just had a 6.5 magnitude earthquakeA strong earthquake occurred at 11:15:56 AM (PST) on Monday, December 22, 2003. The magnitude 6.5 event occurred 11 km (7 miles) NE of San Simeon, CA. The hypocentral depth is 8 km ( 5 miles). http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/Quakes/nc40148755.htm To put 6.5 in perspective, the 1989 earthquake that did so much damage in San Francisco was a 6.9 on the richter scale.

Championes! Championes! Ole! Ole! Ole!

4-2!! WE WON!!! The San Jose Earthquakes are the MLS Champions for the 2nd time in three years....and I was there. Mike, Mindy, Deanne, Andrew and I drove down to Carson on Saturday night. Captain Tindle piloted the Minivan with grace and aplomb. We stayed at a Courtyard Marriot near LAX, which was very nice - I can always fall asleep to the sound of jet engines.On Sunday morning we piled back into the trusty Minivan and headed for the Home Depot Center which is magnificent and clearly not deserved by the Galaxatives. We somehow managed to get killer seats despite only getting them the week before. We were 4 rows back from the field and despite being rather close to the Fire fans, I think we were all pleased with the seats. The game kicked off after the national anthem and a flypast by 2 F-18s. We couldn't believe our luck when the Quakes were awarded a free kick just outside the box after only 4 minutes. Richard Mulrooney, Jeff Agoos and Ronnie Ekelund all lined up over the ball; any one of them was capable of slapping the ball into the back of the net from that position. This time, it was Ronnie's turn, and he delivered...GOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL!!!! After that, we never looked back, we led the whole way through the match, despite some spirited effort by the Fire (except Ante Razov who couldn't score in a whorehouse) and an own goal by Chris Roner. A great penalty save from Pat Onstad and 2 goals by LD were enough to bring the trophy back home. Sir Frank Yallop, who is likely leaving the Quakes as early as next week to take the Canadian national team coaching position was deserving of Coach of the Year, but somehow the MLS overlooked him and gave it to Dave Sarachan. After the crowd left and we had soaked in all the glory, I managed to snag three of the Champions hats that they give the players when they win (see the above pic.) Exhausted and glorious, we piled into the minivan and began the trip home. After a brief detour to drop Andrew off at his hostel in Beverly Hills (?) we hit the road. A quick stop at Del Taco later and we were back in Tracy. God Bless you San Jose!

All systems go

I posted pictures for days 2 and 3 (the image above is a composite of 4 images, I'll post the full size version later.) Deanne has posted the journal for day 2 and day 3.

VeggieTerror

Update: They got us too!Well kinda; we were all sitting at work when someone comes by and tells us to evacuate because there had been a bomb threat. So we all mill around and go outside and of the execs tells us that someone had phoned in a bomb threat and because of what happened at Shaklee, they were going to err on the side of caution. He also said the cops were coming and were going to sweep with dogs and that we should probably not go near our cars.......yeah. So anyway, we're like "whatever" and went on our merry ways. About an hour later I came back and.....wow. They had the whole area cordoned off, the FBI, ATF, local cops and the BOMB SQUAD were there. I was like "hmmm...ok." I went around the other side of the building to talk to some friends of mine and there was ambulances, fire trucks, K-9 units, unmarked cars, guys in suits with guns. It was chaos. We waited for about half an hour and nothing really happened. Then one of the guys walked over to the door and sat down on the curb out of view. There were some people standing around him and after about 5 minutes he stood up to reveal himself clad in a full bomb blast suit. There was a unanimous cry of "daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn." The guy waddled into the building and about 20 mins later came out with a package with they dumped into one of those bomb blast cylinders to test it ( I assume.) Turns out, while the dogs were in the building, about three of them zeroed on this package and that made the feds a little suspect, so they sent someone in to get it. After about an hour they must have decided that the package was OK because the bomb squad took off, then the amulance and fire truck, then most of the feds. I took after that because I was hungry and when I got back everything was gone and it was business as usual. I'm still not sure what they found and if it was dangerous but it certainly was an exciting morning! Ecoterrorists strike again... Deanne and I were on our way to work this morning and we were listening to our local news radio station when we heard "The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force has joined Plesanton Police in the investigation of an explosion at the Shaklee Corporation headquarters early this morning." We both looked at each other because this piqued our interest on several levels. Firstly, and most importantly, our good friend's father works at Shaklee, so our immediate concern was for his safety. The "device" went off at 4am so I don't think anyone was there and the reports say there were no injuries and minor damage. Secondly, the Shaklee headquarters are about half a mile away from where I work. The local police were telling people at Shaklee and nearby Peoplesoft to not come into work today. So I thought "there's hope, it's small, but there's hope!" and I called into work to see if we had been shutdown too. But alas, it was not to be. So I figured I'd use my proximity to the incident to snap some driveby pics which you can see below. Basically they're blurry and crap but it shows that they've blocked the entire road and there's bomb squad units still on the scene. But who did this? Well it sounds VERY similar to a device that went off in front of the Chiron headquarters in Emeryville a few months ago; same timing device and everything. So everyone is concluding that it was hippy animal freaks. Now Shaklee doesn't test on animals, I know that. So I think the ecohippies got their wires crossed (no pun intended.) Anyway, thankfully no one was hurt and the damage was minor, but still, it shows that domestic terrorism can hit even in happy sunshine Pleasanton.

Windows...DOWN!

Added another little mod to my car the other night. So the VW's have a nice feature (I'm sure you've seen it in the commercial) where you can unlock the car and hold the key down and it will lower all the windows (or vice versa if you're locking the car.) A pretty neat feature. But what happens if you want to use the remote to operate the windows?Cue the Alientech window controller. This little device, when carefully integrated into the stock electronics, lets you open and close the windows and sunroof via the keyless entry remote. So I can be walking away from the car with all the windows down and the sunroof open, click the remote and the windows will go up. It's the same if I'm walking towards the car and I click the remote, the windows will open to let that first waft of 1000 degree air escape. I can even program it to vent the windows when I lock the car. Very handy. It was pretty easy to install too. Just popped off the door panel, t-tapped the existing window controls and voila! Incidentally, when I was taking off the door panel, I found a diamond earring....which was nice.

First of Many

The first of what I think will be many minor tweaks and mods to the car. I added XM radio the other day. I originally had it in the CRV and I loved it so when we got the Passat that was the first thing I wanted to get done.Ken took care of the install and did a great job. The antenna is just behind the FM/AM antenna and the contoller sits at the top of the center console. Check out the picture below. The next thing I want to add to the car (though I don't think it will happen for a while) is this: It's a double din monitor with a fold down face that has a DVD slot behind it. Ingenious. I hate the flip out monitors, I think they look tacky. This has the look of a aircraft panel with all the buttons on the side (in fact, the manufacturer started out making TFT panels for aircraft.) It has a nav input which will be nice, once you've had a nav systems, it's hard to go back to getting hopelessly lost (go figure.) So anyway, that's a future project.

Fast and Furiouserestness

OK I officially love my car. I knew it was fast off the line because of the turbo charger, and I knew it handled well because of the ASR but yesterday I actually put it to the test.We were on our way to the video store and there were three people in the car including myself and the air conditioning was on. We stopped at a traffic light to turn left onto a main road that takes you into town. For some reason I had the urge to just....just floor it when the green light came on.........so I did. The car leapt forward and I yanked the wheel to the left and the car cornered like it was on rails. The ASR kicked in just as the wheels began to give of a satisfying squeal. David and Deanne were wedged against the side of the car and I...well I was just grinning. When we "levelled" off and I returned the car to appropriate speed I hear a disapproving "Alex!" from the back of the car and all I could say was "Hehe.....I didn't think it would do that....hehehe....especially with three people in the car and the air conditioning on...hehehe....that was cool." Man that was fun :)

Psyche!

HA! Fooled you! You thought I was going to get a Murano or a Z, or maybe, at a stretch, one of the other cars I listed like a BMW or something. Well I didn't. I am now the proud owner of a Volkswagen Passat Turbo. Funny Story; I was actually going to the local Toyota dealership to look at some completely different cars like the Highlander. Anyway, I was looking around, not too impressed with anything I saw and I was about to leave when I saw a white Passat parked near the entrance to the dealership. I walked up to it and had a look and I was impressed (I've always liked the Passat) but then I saw the price...and at that moment I didn't know wether I should call Deanne or lick the handle to the car. Turns out they had JUST received the car a few hours before I had come on in the lot and it wasn't even in their inventory yet. So I gave it a once over on the inside, decided that I loved this car and called Deanne and told her of my discovery. I would have bought it there and then but the dealership wanted their service guys to go over it to make sure everything was ship shape. So the next morning we got the call that the car was ready and I dragged Deanne out of the house and back down to the dealership. We then began the long and arduous process of getting the paperwork done. Halfway through the "negotiations" we realized that I had forgotten some necessary documents so I jumped in the car and ran home. Now I should note here that when I left, I was not impressed with the rate they were offering, and I thought I might have to unleash the fist of fury. So I went home, got the paperwork and during the time I was gone, Deanne had knocked the price, interest rate and payments down by a significant amount. It was impressive to witness :) From now on, she does all the family negotiating. But after what seemed like an eternity, we signed the final piece of paper acknowledging that the car was in fact a car and in the eyes of a law was construed a car under mandate 133.ba/41 section d. "What is a car?" So we finally got to drive the car home three hours later...and I love it :) It has a tiptronic transmission which means while I'm driving along in standard automatic, I can nudge the shifter over and then I'm in manual mode and I change gear by tapping the shifter up or down. You can't over or under-rev and it always puts you in the right gear when you shift over. It's alot of fun. Although I have to admit I did feel rather odd buying a German car on independence day.