Something just ain't right here

In the wake of the latest Ted Stevens Senate embarrassment [see here and here for other recent classics], I've been left pondering one question above others:   How is it that 627,000 Alaskans are given the power to continually send Ted Stevens -- along with another Senator of their choosing -- across the continent to the Capitol in Washington while 582,000 Washingtonians are not given any power to send anyone across town to that very same Capitol where Mr. Stevens practices his buffoonery?

The answer, of course, is that the U.S. Constitution is flawed with respect to the District of Columbia and its lack of Congressional representation. Residents of U.S. territories such as Guam and Puerto Rico at least get the benefit of exemption from Federal Income Taxation in exchange for their lack of legislative presence. On the other hand, I would be hard pressed to explain to a foreign visitor why District residents DO have the power to elect Executive Branch leaders and DO have to pay Federal taxes -- while they DON'T have a voice in the Legislative Branch.

And I'm not even saying D.C. needs to be granted full-fledged statehood. But throw us a frickin' bone! Just give us one Representative and one Senator. At least then, we'd feel like we've got someone to defend us from Ted Stevens.

Asteroids, supervolcanos, and black holes

ABC News and "Last Days On Earth" -- airing tonight at 9pm.

Somebody over there at ABC has obviously been reading my blog.

OMFG! This was almost a real-life version of the press conference scene from the Naked Gun where Lt. Frank Drebin accidentally brings a live mic into the bathroom while taking the longest, noisiest piss ever

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5297958.stm

Too bad. This situation had the potential for total pee (or poop!) hilarity. Though I guess unknowingly gossiping on-air about your sister-in-law being a "control freak" during a big Presidential speech is still pretty solid stuff.

Positive thoughts for Monday

So the country is still being run by the brain trust that thought it wise and in the interest of making us safer to spend 0.3 trillion dollars (and counting) on a western Christian invasion, destruction, and rebuilding of a sovereign and predictably fragile Arab Islamic nation which posed no prior threat to us...

But on the positive side, we are 10 days away from kicking off the NFL season!   Dolphins at Steelers next Thursday night. I can't wait!

Plus, we are only 40 days away from the beginning of Battlestar Galactica Season Three.


And on the subject of television -- I like the fact that 24 and The Office won the best drama and best comedy Emmys last night. Along with Battlestar, those are actually the only television shows I've been watching on a weekly basis lately.

Brief thought about cell phone voice mail

Am I the only one who thinks there's a scam going on when it comes to how your voice mail message gets introduced? In addition to your personalized greeting (which pretty much says everything that needs to be said except for the "beep"), the system goes on and on about other options and things you can do.

I've had a theory for a long time that all that crap is designed to force callers to breach the 1 minute mark. Thanks to all that unnecessary crap, most unanswered calls last for a little over 1 minute unless you leave the briefest of messages... which means they typically get to rack up 2 minutes of airtime for a call that was not even completed!

To me, hearing all that extra crap about voice mail options is like rooting for a team on the losing end of a football game late in the fourth quarter when the winning team is intentionally running down the clock.

Last Couple Weeks - Recap - part 3

DC --> Lake Placid, NY --> DC

Up next for us... 1100 miles on the road driving to and from the Adirondacks of upstate New York. Erin and Andy were getting married in Lake Placid. And we would also be visiting my aunt, uncle, and cousin who live a couple towns over from there.

We started off pretty late last Thursday night, leaving DC after 8pm. So we wound up pulling into an Econolodge in Glens Falls, NY at 3 or 3:30am, still two hours short of my aunt and uncle's place in Vermontville, NY. We slept in a bit and then finally arrived at their house on Friday afternoon.

After lunch, we drove a few miles down the road and took their four kayaks out on Rainbow Narrows and then made our way out to the start of Rainbow Lake. It was a really nice paddle and a nice start to the weekend. Along the way, my cousin Jake, some of his friends, and some other younger folks made use of a big rope swing hanging over the edge of the water. It looked like fun and I sort of wish I had joined them. After grabbing some dinner with my family in Saranac Lake, NY that evening, Mary and I continued over to Lake Placid for a wedding gathering at a bar in town.


Jake, me, Nancy, Vinny, and Mary

The next day, after a quick breakfast at Nancy and Vinny's, we met Art in Lake Placid for lunch and to get ready for the wedding. Before going to the church for the ceremony, we did make a very important stop at Herb Brooks Arena -- a.k.a. site of the 1980 Miracle On Ice. I was totally awestruck, as I'm sure Art also was. And I was also surprised by how few people were inside despite the fact that it was a nice August weekend with lots of visitors around town. We made our way down to the bench and snapped a bunch of fun photos -- being dressed like coaches as an added bonus.


Art and I doing our best coaching routine


about to hop on the ice... and rip our suit pants

We then walked over to the church for the wedding. After a very nice ceremony, Erin and Andy were married. This being our third wedding in the past six weeks or so, I thought I would be weddinged out by that point. However, after a quick stop at Starbucks on our way from the church to the reception, I was ready to go for one more party.

The reception was under cover at the Lake Placid Horse Show grounds, but still had a nice outdoor feeling to it with windows and open space everywhere. The bluegrass music playing during the early part of the evening definitely fit the venue and seemed to put everyone in a good mood. A fun night was had by all. The evening ended with Mary passed out in bed back at the hotel as Art, Jill, and I drank a bottle of local wine out of paper Econolodge cups. Three cheers to Erin and Andy! [wedding photos]


the newlywed couple on their way into the reception

After Jill and Art left on Sunday morning, my family drove down from Vermontville to Lake Placid to meet Mary and I for a good breakfast before we hit the road for DC. Ten hours later, we were back home. Time for things to get back to normal.


The Aftermath

Only a month ago, I felt like I was in pretty good shape. Now after a few weeks of travel, bad eating, serious boozing, and not touching a disc, I suddenly feel like a piece of shit. I think my ultimate game has definitely taken a step back. Hopefully, I'll be back to normal within a week or two.

Last Couple Weeks - Recap - part 2

Yosemite --> Lake Tahoe (Anat and Aaron's wedding)

With our excellent four day Yosemite trip behind us, we made our way up to Crystal Bay on the north shore of Lake Tahoe for the start of a different kind of four night run. Aaron and Anat were getting married. And when I say "getting married," I mean they were getting super duper married. About three fourths of the guests were staying at the Cal Neva resort and casino while some of their closer friends would be staying at the Fairwinds, a fantastic house on the lake a few minutes walking distance away from the Cal Neva.


The Fairwinds - our home base for the weekend

The "house" could be more accurately described as a deluxe, private bed and breakfast. There was a large tastefully decorated common area and kitchen and then six bedrooms each with a bathroom and space to sleep four or five people. For hosting dinners, there was a series of outdoor patios and a nice lawn area. There was also a small private beach area and an elaborate dock which stretched a good distance out from the shore. This would be our home base for four days of good times culminating with a Sunday evening wedding ceremony and reception held on a different part of the lake.

We arrived at the house late on the Thursday night. We unpacked our Yosemite stuff, ran some laundry, and hung out with the handful of folks that had already arrived for a few minutes before heading off to bed.

Friday morning, I was startled out of my slumber by a bored Aaron who decided to jump on my bed at around 7:30am. I was in no mood for it unfortunately, and grouchily ordered him out. Aaron didn't realize it, but I was already planning on mentioning his early morning antics/wakeups in my best man toast on Sunday night. Later on in the morning, we all pitched in to unload and set up chairs/tables/etc for the Friday and Saturday night parties which would be held at the house. Then Aaron and the groomsmen were off to try on our tuxes. At the same time, Mary was being a good trooper and drove back to Reno to pick up Anat and Aaron's marriage license and to grab Marshall and Kelvin from the airport. We figured Marshall would be going back there later that night to pick up Ira, but she was stuck in travel hell and would not make it in until late Saturday afternoon.


set up for the Friday night welcome party

The Friday night welcome party was lovely. Everyone had pretty much the same reaction as they walked in and saw the house/location: disbelief. Friday night was also the night I got a little too loaded. Yet I still managed to fight the good fight and helped close down the party for the second straight night. And as a bonus, I may have saved the whole wedding weekend. We had turned off all the lights and were literally seconds away from retiring to our rooms when I noticed two things: First, a very large raccoon was creeping along the deck towards the house. And second, we had left the door to the living room/kitchen area wide open. That raccoon would have been well on its way to doing some serious damage!

I woke up with a pretty serious hangover Saturday morning. To cure this, I rolled out of bed and jumped straight into the lake. This was a mistake for a couple reasons. First, I had no body heat built up. And second, we were at altitude. As soon as I hit the chilly water, I started hyperventilating. And then I couldn't calm my breathing down until I got out of the water. So any hangover remedying benefit that might have been gained from a morning swim was totally lost in a spasm of panicked swimming and fast breathing.


Aaron and Anat on Saturday

We drove over to the other part of the lake on Saturday afternoon for our rehearsal at the Thunderbird Lodge. The place kicked ass. The rehearsal went well and then we were off to tour the huge house, complete with underground tunnels and a 2000 horsepower yacht-on-steroids in the dock. Then it was back to the Fairwinds for Saturday evening's dinner. Another great meal, plus there was an ice cream bar afterwards. A number of people picked up the microphone towards the end of dinner to offer their heartfelt congrats to the couple on the eve of their wedding.

Later on that evening, I had my first Cuban cigar courtesy of Anat's father. Unfortunately, I totally failed to enjoy or appreciate the thing. At some point, we made our way to the casino next door to the Cal Neva for a free jam/bluegrass band show and more drinking and some gambling. Also at some point en route to the casino, or perhaps on the return trip, Kelvin took a series of three consecutive spills in which he cut up his hand pretty bad. I wasn't around to see it, but apparently it was quite a sight.

Switching gears to Sunday morning -- we woke up and took down all the chairs/tables/etc as they would no longer be needed since both events at the Fairwinds had already passed. Most everyone then went for a swim in the lake. I managed to cut up a few toes and a finger taking a bad route up onto the rocks out beyond the end of the dock. Nothing too bad, though. After a nice time in the water, it was suddenly time to shower up, get our tuxes on, and head over to the Thunderbird.


chuppah at the Thunderbird

Anat and Aaron's ceremony was picture perfect, just like everything else that weekend. (Except for the fact that the schlubby guy from the rabbi's congregation that served as a witness was standing under the chuppah talking on his cell phone as Aaron and his mother made their way down the aisle. I was about five seconds away from grabbing his phone and tossing it into the lake when he decided to hang up and put it away.) I was so happy for Aaron and Anat. Honestly, the ceremony could have been in a bowling alley and it would have still been special since the two of them make such a wonderful couple. So Lake Tahoe was purely bonus material -- a very nice bonus, of course.

After the ceremony, we did some more photos, pigged out on the hors d'oeuveres, and then moved into dinner as the sun set on the outdoor ceremony/dinner area. This meant that I would be giving my toast fairly soon. I was pretty nervous about that. I'm not a big fan of public speaking and also wanted to do well, both for Aaron and because I had received such a great best man toast at my own wedding last year. So I was putting some real pressure on myself. Each night at Yosemite, I worked on my toast for a little while in the tent before going to bed. I guess it paid off since the toast was well received. I have to take other folks' word for it, though, because I can never tell with that sort of thing. Hopefully I was able to convey enough of my real emotion in it -- I didn't want it to come off as just a bunch of jokes and memories of Aaron.


Aaron's mom on keyboard at the reception

All that was left to do at that point was to go inside and continue the party. The band was great and the drinks were flowing. Plus we got to see Aaron's cousin Doug step in to play guitar on Van Morrison's Moondance. And later, Aaron's mom joined the band for a couple fun tunes on keyboard. All in all, a great capper to a great weekend of wedding festivities. For the third straight night, I spotted a few Perseid meteors and for the fourth consecutive night, I was still standing when it was time to close down the party.


the Maryland crew in fine form

We woke up with just enough time to pack up and say our goodbyes on Monday morning before heading off to the airport. What a fun time! Anat, Aaron, and family really went all-out in terms of putting the weekend together. And it really came together nicely. What a great way for them to kick off their marriage.



Lake Tahoe --> Reno --> DC

Total debacle.

American Airlines lost all of our stuff this time. This included our car and apartment keys (or so we thought) and Kelvin's apartment keys. We left our car at BWI and Mary and I caught a ride back to Gaithersburg with Aaron's mom so we could spend the night at Mary's parents' place. Kelvin and Marshall caught a cab back to DC and both crashed at Marshall's. It turns out Mary and I had our keys in a carry-on, but they were just somewhere that nobody would think to look... especially because I was fairly sure I had put the keys in one of the bags that had been lost by the airline. Mary and I had to metro from Gaithersburg to DC the following morning and then I had to take the MARC train back out to BWI to retrieve the car. Ouch.

But on the plus side, I found out during that first full day back that our check was cashed by the Pittsburgh Steelers for regular season tickets. This made for a very welcome birthday surprise since I was fully expecting to be shut out this season based on how long it had been since I sent my order.

Last Couple Weeks - Recap - part 1

DC --> Reno --> Yosemite

American Airlines lost our tent in transit. This would only be the start of our lost baggage problems. No big deal, though, because we found a 24 hour WalMart outside of Reno, picked up a cheap tent, and continued on south to Mono Lake.

We spent a nice day at Mono Lake including a guided ranger talk/walk. We then proceeded into the northeast corner of Yosemite via the Tioga Pass entrance. After a winter of heavy snowfall, there were still scattered patches of snow at or above 10,000 feet. We drove all the way across the top of the park to the Hodgdon Meadow campground where we spent our first two nights.


El Capitan, Half Dome, and (barely flowing) Bridalveil Falls a la Ansel Adams

On our first two full days in the park, we hiked in and around Yosemite Valley and also made a brief visit to the Hetch Hetchy area. The Mist Trail from the Valley up to Vernal and Nevada Falls was spectacular as was the walk back down a segment of the John Muir Trail. Later, we discovered that some of the short walks at or around Glacier Point brought you to jaw dropping views from above the Valley.


view of Vernal Falls and rainbow from the Mist Trail


posing in front of Half Dome and Vernal and Nevada Falls from across the Valley at Glacier Point

We spent our third night camping at a site just outside the southern end of the park so that we could visit the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias the following morning. Before getting to the grove, though, we stopped in the historic town of Wawona and played a nine hole round of golf. The course is actually inside the national park. We stunk up the joint, but it was definitely a hoot playing golf in Yosemite. We then made an afternoon visit to the Mariposa Grove. The trees were definitely eye-openers, though considering our visit to Sequoia National Park a few years ago, I guess we weren't quite as overwhelmed as some visitors. It was still a great place to visit, though.


Mary being dwarfed by the sequoias

We then made a long trek back up north and across much of the top of the park to get to our Tuolumne Meadows campsite for our last night in the park. We pulled off along the way about nine miles before White Wolf (somewhere near where the road crosses the South Fork of the Tuolumne River) and watched a beautiful sunset before continuing on to the campground. We spent the following day walking along a different segment of the John Muir trail passing through pristine, gorgeous alpine meadows that are centered around the Tuolumne River.


photos of the meadows don't even do them justice

We left the park via the Tioga Pass exit and stopped at the Mobil gas station where the access road meets route 395 at Mono Lake. This was the Best Gas Station ever! They had a great view of Mono Lake, a real restaurant with good ribs and fish tacos among other things, and a patio on the side where we ate outside and listened to a surf-rock band play some fun old tunes.


rockin' out at the best gas station ever

Bottom line: I think Yosemite is now at the top of my Favorite Places in North America list. Our first visit there in 1999 was only a 36 hour tease, but we still loved it. This four day visit definitely confirmed for us what a special place it is.

Sweet Victory is Ours

Just as it seemed our credit card company would claim another victim, we somehow pulled out quite an upset the other day. We had been haggling with out credit card over $62 in international fees that they charged us related to our car trouble in Australia back in October. The main dispute with Avis over a couple thousand dollars was settled relatively easily last year, but Chase continually refused to refund the fee. I won't get into the details of the fee, but I assure you, they were wrong and we were right.

This saga went on and on for almost 10 months. I would send letters to Chase. They would send me back form letters which seemed to deny my requests for a refund, but never actually addressed any of the arguments I had made. I would make angry phone calls. They would find 20 different ways to say "I'm sorry, I can't help you." So finally, I sent one last letter about a month back which I was going to consider my last effort.


I guess this picture has nothing to do with this story, but it does show how I feel when fighting with big bad corporations -- plus it is a funny picture

And then this week, an unexpected surrender letter from Chase arrived in the mail.   They are refunding our $62! And that isn't all. Apparently someone really did review the file this time around and realized how awful they had been over the past 10 months. So as a "whoops, sorry for all your trouble," they picked out a recent restaurant charge from our account and gave us a credit for that $35 charge as well. The letter said to consider it "dinner on us."

Persistence really paid off. Yeah, I probably wasted more than $97 worth of my time on this since October, but I really feel like this was a nice win for us. I think I should frame Chase's surrender letter. In this day and age of shitty customer service, those sorts of things don't seem to happen very often.


In other news:   We're leaving for 10 days around Yosemite (camping/hiking) and then Tahoe (wedding) tomorrow. Should be a blast.

WJDD

It looks like there's some new video content available at Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron's super awesome Way of the Master website. I particularly like the Evolution video where these jokers attempt to convince people that evolution is a fraud via the following tactics: A) interview unidentified no-name 20 year olds who look stupid when they try to explain the nuances of evolutionary theory, B) call airlines to see if they will allow a monkey to travel in coach because monkeys are our relatives according to evolution -- and then act like they've got a serious "booyah" argument against evolution when the airlines say the monkeys can only fly as cargo, and C) take a monkey to a restaurant and basically do the same schtick only using food instead of an airline ticket agent.

I should also mention that Comfort leads off the Atheism video by using a banana to prove the existence of a divine being.   For real.

If anything, their line of persuasion almost seems like it should be offensive to truly religious folks. Using such low-brow arguments to rope people in is tantamount to an acknowledgment that religion is primarily for the weak-minded. Comfort and Cameron actually say things like "avoid engaging in intellectual conversation" when describing how to "save lost people." I disagree. Talking about things like the Big Bang and science are important. Specifically, questions about where all our fundamental laws of nature came from, what caused the Big Bang, and what came before it are sure to stir deep thoughts for many people. Without supernatural considerations, concepts like infinity or something-from-nothing are pretty tough to digest in terms of the history of our universe.

So my point here is not that I've got a beef with Christianity (or religion) in general, but that Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron seem like a couple of jerks.

The Tool Booth -- a place near the toll booth where a very stupid man revealed himself to be a complete tool

We hit southbound I-95 traffic about a mile before the Delaware Turnpike ends, just before crossing back into Maryland on Sunday evening. The lines for each individual lane formed in a very orderly fashion a few hundred feet before the toll booths. We had slowly made our way through most of one of these lines, perhaps six or seven cars away from reaching the booth, when some lunatic came barreling in from out of nowhere and cut right in front of us. He had obviously driven up the open space between two well-defined queues at high speed and very nearly caused an accident as he forced his way in front of us. I was pretty pissed off, so I honked my horn a bunch and then gave the guy the finger.

So this asshole puts his car in park, gets out, and starts YELLING AT ME. After the stunt he just pulled, he was actually yelling at me. In not-so-great English, he kept screaming "You come here." The guy apparently wanted to brawl right there... in the middle of a traffic jam while blocking a toll booth... on a state line with at least 10 cops within 1000 feet.

As this was going on, I noticed I had a good chunk of space to my left and that the cars ahead of this moron had already moved up towards the toll booth. So instead of accepting his invitation for stupidity, I just stepped on the accelerator, neatly swerved around the guy as he stood there motioning next to his driver's side door, and pulled up towards the toll booth ahead of his car. The guy refused to "go down" though. He hurriedly jumped back into his car, slammed on the gas, and tried to get around on the left in order to cut in front of us once more. The main problem for him at that moment was that I had already reached the point where the cement barriers rise up to separate the toll lanes. So he had to slam on his breaks to avoid launching his car into the toll booth.

I guess you had to be there to fully appreciate the situation, but we all thought it was hilarious. The one thing this guy had going for him (at least in his mind) was that he was going to reach the toll booth five seconds before we did. But then by getting out of his car, the dumbass allowed me to get back in front of him.

Nasty toes

Playing in the Wildwood beach tourney did no favors for my precious feet. I still can't get all of the sand out of my wounds, but hopefully the neosporin will help prevent any infection. My feet should be healed in time for me to destroy them again next week while hiking in Yosemite.



Sam's description of a true moron driver encounter at the Delaware Turnpike toll booth to come soon