does anyone know somebody who needs a roommate?

or more appropriately someone who needs a cheap house to live in while i'm out of town most of the year?

I love the constantly improving technology at the gas stations. It used to take me two minutes to pump $10 of gas... Now I can pump ten bucks in a matter of seconds.

Just reviewed the Tax Rebate Schedule and saw they are paying out based on last two digits of your SSN.

Muhahaha...

I haven't started writing any tracks yet, but you're invited to the CD Release Party for Fierce Popcorn, the highly anticipated followup album to all my previously unreleased albums.

Went skiing yesterday with the boss and a friend up at A-Basin in Colorado. I put on some sunblock in the morning, then skiied all day... Turns out one application was not enough. I learned afterwards that the intensity of the sun increases by about 6% per 1,000 feet of altitude, so where we were skiing at 13,000 feet, the intensity of the sun was about 78% stronger than at sea level, the UV is less filtered by the atmosphere, plus there were added reflections off the snow, thinner air, etc...

I got baked about as good as the Pop-Tarts.

Just hit my 10 year anniversary at Ernst & Young yesterday, which was a nice reminder that I am quite old. I got the form letter from the Chairman saying thanks for being awesome, along with a golden ticket into the EY treasure chest to pick out a prize.

I found an interesting selection including watches, clocks, an inflatable raft, pearl necklaces, and some telescopes. I went with a portable DVD player.

Burke Lakefront Airport is my new favorite hangout. After my first flight back in September I never went back because the flight school was out at CGF in Richmond Heights. Then they moved to BKL, which sounded a lot more attractive.

So I've been trying to keep the entries coming in the old logbook...


Yesterday flew the shiny 2006 Diamond DA-20 N373AM from BKL and flew to LNN and back, did 4 takeoffs and landings. They were not what anyone might call "perfect", but any landing I can write about later is good enough for me. Flew back to Burke into the setting sun over a frozen Lake Erie and parked my favorite little plane back at the gate.

I'm going to try to get more photos from the air/airport but at the moment, those are below the priority level compared to the other items on the landing checklist that I'm having enough trouble remembering...

Visual Paging... answering the age-old question: "Where is my wallet?"

Morning in Salt Lake......

So I changed to a new webcam app, Yawcam. Let me know if it's better or worse.

I was happy to wake up in the parking lot of an IHOP this morning.

I just ate Chipotle for lunch two hours ago, and I already want it again.

edit: Instead of going back to Chipotle, I ate the top 4 layers of the Saki Tree, plus the star. I recommend using a visitor badge that you forgot to return to cut apart the layers.

"I wanna feel the car crash ..."

I downloaded the Car Crash (Matt Nathanson) mp3, and I've been enjoying it a for the past couple weeks. Coincidentally, I have been involved in 3 car crashes in the last two weeks.

Today, I drove my rental car into some lady's Subaru at a stop sign while driving through the suburbs of Denver with my boss. I was in a real good mood right before it happened, and then while it happened, and after it happened as well.

It was a very avoidable collision: I saw her stopped and had more than enough time to react, but I just kinda slightly applied the brakes until receiving an equal and opposite reaction from her rear bumper. I can't explain why I didn't try stop harder, since I could have.

Anywaay, we got out of our cars and I was kinda still smiling. She was not. "What the hell was that?" She needs to chill, I think to myself. I filled her in on my opinion that the brakes on my rental are not as sensitive as the ones on my car at home. She was disturbed by my lack of interest in the gravity of the situation, but she couldn't find any damage on her dirty Outlander, so we parted ways semi-peacefully. I'm thinking the song is getting to my head and I need to delete it from my iTunes before it affects my insurance premiums.

and we're back...

I felt some illness coming on last Monday while I was in Palm Beach and committed to drinking water & juice, and cut out coffee/water/pop/etc... So in addition to my illness,I had to simultaneously endure the misery of caffeine and alcohol withdrawal. And I don't think it helped my recovery time either... I'd guess I have another day or two of this and I'm back to good.

Here's some pictures from Palm Beach, and one of Cacey for good measure.

My employer reports raking in $21.1 billion in the past year. I'm sure that will be equitably distributed and I'll be buying new cars for all of you soon.

Here are some new photos from Day 4 & 5

Mount Fuji is an elusive hill. We did get to see it, which happens to be a rare event due to weather conditions usually surrounding the mountain, but my picture of it was less than breathtaking, and I also just accidentally deleted it, so no mountain for you. Not much else to say about the Fuji region, except that horse is a popular meat there. I tried some for lunch. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good.

Then it was down to visit Kimi’s place. Hung out in Nara, which is full of deer. It’s also home to Tōdai-ji, a large temple complex housing a 500 ton Buddha statuette which I poorly photographed.

Came back and we were hosted by Kimi’s boss-types from the JET Program. It was a non-stop culinary bonanza in an old-school Japanese restaurant in a little wooden room with paper doors, sitting on the floor, and lots of food, mostly uncooked aquatic life with some other treats. There had to be about 25 unique pieces that were served over the evening. Some were bizarre – Yuba a mini-simmering pot of soymilk – every couple minutes skin forms at the top, and you pull it out, dip it in some sauce and eat it.

There was more to the day, but you probably won’t hear about it because I’m done typing now. Munch on some pictures instead:

Day 1 & 2 photos moved to a separate page....

So after the Denver thievery, I bought a new phone... it's a "World Phone" which means it works in every country except Japan. How convenient. I'm probably better off that way.

Click for STORIES FROM JAPAN DAY 1 (moved to load this page faster)

Update -- attention people of Denver: I wish you hadn't stolen my cell phone.

Denver is an awesome city. I love America. I love caipirinhas. I even love my job a lot. Viva la resistance. Also, I think I am drunk posting from the bathroom in this restaurant.

:)

I stayed out until 4:30am at the Las Vegas Hilton with my friend Nate for his birthday Tuesday. (winning @ 3-card poker) It struck me that the casinos are much more enjoyable during the wee hours. Most tables had between 0-2 people playing on them, the limits were lower, and the dealers/pit crew seemed more relaxed and friendly.

So I set my alarms for 4am today and ventured out to play with the crickets. It was a profitable (3-card poker) and enjoyable experience -- really the only way to go, especially if you're native to the GMT -5.

Driving back to the hotel in a cab from Manhattan at 4am, I find myself wondering what the odds are of arriving at work on time tomorrow.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Blah, captain's saying it's was just another plane on our runway. I was hoping we were going to get the thrill of a gear-up landing.

Fun - first aborted landing on way toi Houston.... Still don't know why ... Going around now. Better luck this time.

I'm now 1.5% complete with the hours needed for my private pilot certificate. Flying was pretty awesome. Went up in this rig here, the Diamond DA20. It is a brand new plane with only about 110 hours on it.

Got to pretty much do the entire flight, except for some assistance with rudder control from the instructor, and a couple other things that I'm sure he took care of in the background without my knowledge. I made the calls to the tower, took off, flew around a bit, out over the lake to try out some turns, back over land for some more steep turning.

I asked the instructor to show me some aerobatics the plane was capable of. He did a knife-edge turn, a wingover, and a brief zero-gravity maneuver which was fun and I was glad I forgot breakfast. I got to handle about all of the landing which was pretty sweet. It all went pretty fast -- almost too fast to realize what was going on, but it was really sweet. Oh - he also said that it was obvious that I knew what I was doing somewhat, and that most people have driven off the taxiway onto the grass within the first minute.

Yesterday was a great night for flying...

My subtraction skills failed me last night at 2:45 am when trying to decide what time I should set my alarm clocks to make my 7:30 flight.

Left my house alarmingly late, and was pretty sure my odds of making the flight were in the 20% range. I had to use turbo boost and the microwave jammer, but I made it from my driveway to airplane seat in a cool 25 minutes.