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Wed, 16 Sep 2009 @ 22:14 || Sunnyvale || Travel

Back at my usual hotel, the Quality Inn (see past posts for my insane reason for hotel choices). They've been busy since I've been away. They have upgraded to full digital cable in each room. My room still has an older TV, but they are replacing all the TVs with 50" HDTV flat screens, even so, the older TV can see the higher cable channels, was over 200 channels to include all the sirius music channels.

Since I read the book World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, I can't enter a building without thinking how I would Zombie proof it. Zombie proofing a building has two major aspects; securing it from the single to small groups of zombies and securing it from large hoards. The first is pretty straight forward, get a two+ story building and take out the stairs. Zombies can't climb very high, they can't support their own weight. The second is much harder, when zombies swarm they will climb over themselves and eventually overcome any wall. So you need to make the building 'sense' proof, such that the zombies can't tell there is anyone living inside. It's hard to tell how zombies can sense the living, but blocking out all sounds, smells and sights should do the trick.

The Quality Inn would be a temporary place to hide from zombies at best. First the first floor entrances are all glass, no way to easily secure them, not to mention all the windows. Secondly the stairwells are very wide and supported by solid steel girders. To remove the stairs, and there are three staircases, you would need a lot of help and cutting torches. Even if you had a dozen folks and an acetylene torch it would be a tough job cutting the stairs down. Third the hotel is not swarm proof, the windows on the second floor are too large and the rooms configured in a way that there are no interior rooms. There no place to hide more than one or two people for any extended length of time. The zombies would swarm around the building crushing each other till they formed a ramp of zombie parts to reach the second floor windows, then it would be all over for the poor souls hiding in the bathrooms.

My house, if we survived the initial swarm, is pretty defensible. Other than the sliding glass doors, which I would probably brick up, assuming I had time, the stairs are easily removed, as I discovered after Sukki ripped the carpet out.

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Tue, 10 Feb 2009 @ 20:24 || Mixed feelings || Travel

Frontier was the last airline that I was still an elite member of. The last few flights I've taken have been on other airlines or I used ffq miles. It's been a while since I earned miles on Frontier. A few years ago I was some level of elite on three different airlines.

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Sat, 17 Jan 2009 @ 12:41 || CES 2009 || Travel

I have my pictures up on my Facebook page.

The show was fun, very interesting and lots of neat toys, I was on pain killers most of the show, when they wore off, I was in hell. Met up with Wayne on Friday night, hit the show early, got there 15 minutes before they opened the doors on Saturday morning.

Covered 2/3 of the international gateway section, 1/2 of the car electronic section and most of the TV/Audio sections the first day. Second day we did the video games, computers, home automation and cell phone area. We probably missed 1/3 of the entire conference, next year really need to get there Thursday night and do the whole conference at a slightly slower pace.

Saturday night we attended a taping of Jeopardy, it will air March 18th, doubt we got on camera, we were sitting in the back left. Sunday night Shane and I went to LOVE, the Cirque du Soleil Beatles show. The show was great, glad I went, this is something I normally wouldn't go to.

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Fri, 19 Dec 2008 @ 16:13 || CES || Travel

I put our names in for tickets to watch a taping of Jeopardy. Haven't heard back yet, not sure we got in. I did get tickets to see LOVE, the Cirque du Soleil Beatles show.

Back in 2005, we only covered about 2/3rds of the show. Friday night and all day Saturday we walked the show floor. We skipped 1/2 a day Sunday cause we were too tired. This year I hope to see the entire expo.

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Tue, 11 Nov 2008 @ 09:25 || Logan || Travel

Met with a friend of mine last night who has lost around 60lbs in only a few months. He did it following the Atkins plan. I'll have to look in and see if I can do the same, need to ask the doctor if it's safe.

Overall the trip out here was productive. I'm not sure I enjoyed the visiting the family part of the trip as much as I anticipated. It's only once a year...

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Wed, 05 Nov 2008 @ 20:52 || Boston || Travel

I wasted some of my miles on upgrading my ticket to first class. Other than having the stewardest top off my glass of water a few times and the seats being larger, I didn't notice much of a difference. I'm only on the waiting list for first class on the way home, not sure I care if I make it or not. I have a bunch on miles on United, which I almost never fly, so I figured why not use it to upgrade. While it was probably more comfortable, I'm not convinced it was a big enough difference to warnet the miles. However, I don't know what I'd do with the miles, they're pretty much worthless to me.

After the conference, I'm staying the weekend to visit my brother up in Gloucester. Elyse is staying to visit with relatives in Connecticut. We fly back on the same flight on Sunday.

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Thu, 17 Jul 2008 @ 17:09 || Porch Swing || Travel

It wasn't a very attractive house, neither was the woman, but seeing her swinging back and forth with seemingly no cares, while I was mentally preparing myself for whatever the client was about to throw at me, kinda helped me set my attitude.

Moved me from my normal grumpy curmudgeonly self to a less grouchy person, not sure if I actually became pleasant, but I moved in that direction.

Maybe I need a porch swing at the office.. need a porch first.

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Wed, 09 Jul 2008 @ 19:14 || Topeka Again || Travel

Mindy got to see the demon horse that guards DIA. I keep meaning to write up a blog post on how hideous that thing is.

I got into my hotel around midnight. Got the same room different floor as the last time I was out here. Even though this place is a dump, it's probably the best that Topeka has to offer.

So far it's been very humid and sticky. It's also oddly smelly.

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Tue, 17 Jun 2008 @ 07:30 || Farty Chair || Travel

I aptly named it the farty chair, as each time I sit on it, just like a whoppie cushion, it emits a long loud fart. I'm getting up and sitting down more than necessary as it makes me laugh.

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Thu, 29 May 2008 @ 10:04 || Heading to Orlando || Travel

The last few weeks we've been very busy at work. I'm working at one main client that is taking most of my time, but also juggling other smaller gigs and getting the company ready for the RSDC conference next week.

I fly out tomorrow morning with my sales manager Beth, we will be spending a day in Tampa then going over to Orlando on Saturday. This year the conference is more packed with events than last years, which I was hard pressed to attend everything I wanted to. I think IBM is taking the cue from Disney World and making sure there is too much to do in the time allotted. This year we will have 5 employees at the conference, between all of us we should get good coverage.

I fly home the following Friday, most of my employees fly back Thursday, I'm staying an extra day to visit my Mother in Tampa.

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Sun, 04 May 2008 @ 17:18 || Makers Faire day II || Travel

Adam from Mythbusters was there speaking, we hung out in the back of this large room, but could barely hear him, the room was packed. From what I could make out he was explaining his career, and and a bunch of slides showing models he worked on both in the shop and the finished movie shot.

I have a few more pictures.

More pics in the comments...

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Sun, 04 May 2008 @ 10:36 || Makers Faire day I || Travel

Ran into Sarah, she's an old employee of mine, was there with her significant other and thier little one.

Both Wayne and I were wiped out around 6pm. A lot of the faire involved lights and fire, so Shane and I are going to head back tonight to see things all lit up.

Here's a bunch of pictures. They don't do the faire justice, the Steam Punk area was very impressive as was the cycle area, the food vendors and the makers area.

More pictures in the comments

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Thu, 13 Mar 2008 @ 19:34 || Airport || Travel

As usual I'm here too early. You can never tell traffic out here, well it's always bad, but sometimes it's really bad. Today it wasn't too bad. My usual gas station was closed, so it took me a while to find another one.

This week went by quick, was productive enough at my client, but didn't get what we had scheduled done. That required special paperwork that wasn't started till I got out here, and as most paperwork implies, it doesn't happen over night. Most likely we'll need to push it through the next time I'm out here.

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Sun, 09 Mar 2008 @ 20:26 || Headed out || Travel

While going thru security my laptop backpack broke. The zipper won't close anymore. I have a bunch of IBM bags from all the conferences I've been to, but they are all on the wrong end of the flight. This will give me another excuse to go to Fry's.

I'll see if I can hit Wayne up for some pliers and see about fixing my backpack, it's only a zipper, how hard could that be to fix? However, I've had this backpack for at least 4 years, maybe longer, I know I bought it at Fry's, but not sure which contract I was on. I'm pretty sure I had it when I was traveling to San Diego each week, which was most of 2005. I probably bought it in 2003 or 2004, so I'm due to buy a new one.

I should build one out of duct tape, like the duct tape wallets. That should look good going thru security.

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Mon, 18 Feb 2008 @ 19:54 || Traveling again || Travel

She knows better for next time, I didn't make her cancel the tickets this week, but told her she needed my approval before booked me on United again. I didn't travel as much as I usually due last year and she only came on board late spring2007, so it's a understandable mistake.

I haven't had yto hang out in DIAs terminal B in a long time. It's changed a lot. I got to the airport as I don't have a frequlent flyer status with United and I couldn't skip the line at security like I usualy do. There wasni't of a line and it went quick, so I have an hour to kill at the airport.

Looks like they've changed a lot, but while I'm an expert on terminal A, I don't have much context to go on. I was able to locate a number or unused tables on the second floor near the Harley store, pretty quiet, not many people.

This flight gets me in about an hour and a half eariler than my usual Frontier flight, so I'll have time to go to the store and get the travel stuff I don't bother to fly with. The Albersons near the hotel has a decent travel size section, so I can toss what I don't use before I fly home. I hate having to do the plastic bag thing.

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Sun, 16 Sep 2007 @ 20:45 || Weather Delays || Travel

I got to the airport early as usual, and find out that my 9:30 flight is delayed till 10:30. If it actually leaves at 10:30 it should get in around 1:00am, which is an hour after all the car rentals close. I'll be stuck paying for a taxi tonight and then trying to get a rental car in the morning before my 9:00am meeting.

They claim it's weather related. Due to all the bad weather this afternoon, all the planes left late, so they are late returning. I checked to see if I could swap my flight for one in the morning, but they were all full and since it's weather related they couldn't guarantee me a seat if they had one. So.. I'm waiting at the airport for the 10:30 flight and will deal with the taxi when I get to San Jose.

If we would just build high speed trains or pneumatic tubes traveling would be much easier.

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Fri, 14 Sep 2007 @ 06:38 || Too many dinners || Travel

I'll probably need to eat only salads for the next few weeks to make up for it. Which I doubt I'll be able to do, I'm headed to San Jose for the next two weeks and already have 1 lunch meeting setup. Luckily it's with someone who is on a no-fat diet, so maybe I'll try and order what he does.

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Thu, 13 Sep 2007 @ 05:35 || Boston || Travel

Yesterday, I attended a backup seminar in Andover with my brother. Was interesting, learned a few things, dedupe, which I have never heard of is apparently a big deal in the back up world. Had lunch with Brenden then headed back to the hotel to continue troubleshooting. Met up with another friend for dinner, Wayne, different Wayne from the one I know in San Jose, we ended up talking till the restaurant closed.

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Mon, 03 Sep 2007 @ 21:27 || September Travel || Travel

Looks like most of this month I'll be back on the road. Next week puts me back in Boston for a few days, which would be nice, however, the days I need to be there are mid-week which pretty much kills the week for me.

I booked the Boston travel from home on Friday and then got an email saying the timing might not work, so I'll have to have my office see about salvaging the ticket I purchased. Normally it's not a big deal, however I didn't use my normal airline so I'll see how accommodating this airline will be, If they aren't very accommodating, I'll probably out the bastards in the blog.

The two weeks after I will be in San Jose again, I need to fit three weeks of work into two for two different projects. Otherwise they'll be a third week for San Jose.

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Sat, 25 Aug 2007 @ 17:49 || I hate United || Travel

The other gate wasn't too far, I walked down to it after stopping at the restroom. As I approached the gate the sign switched from "San Jose" to "Riverdale". Thats never a good omen. I found a monitor and looked up my flight again, it still had the same gate. I was also wondering where Riverdale was, the only Riverdale I knew was inside a video game,

A little while later they post where the new gate is, and they also mention the flight is delayed till 7:30. By the time I got to the new gate, the flight was further delayed to 8:00. At this point I figure I now have time to grab dinner. I found a sub shop and got something to go, and went back to the gate. The flight was now delayed till 9:15.

At this point I called my Sales manager Beth, as I was meeting with Kim in San Jose and I was going to get the rental car. I didn't have Kim's contact info (thats fixed now) so couldn't warn her I was going to be late. While I was talking to Beth, and my cell phone was dieing, the flight got delayed more and was showing 10:40.

Just around 9:00 they announced they found a different plane and would be boarding as soon as it got to the gate. Which they did, and we pushed off around 9:20 just as it started raining.

After about 30 minutes waiting on the runway, the pilot announces they have all but 1 runway closed and we're around number 20th for takeoff. Another 40 minutes or so passes and he announces they have closed the airport and we might be going back to the terminal. After about an hour he announces he thinks they will open the airport again soonish and we'll be on our way. Another 30 minutes and he starts the engines and we start moving, maybe 20 minutes latter we're in the air.

I got into San Jose around 2am. By the time I got my luggage, found a cab and got to the hotel, it was almost 3am.

I got stuck with the middle seat, with all the delays and other flights being canceled, no one was interested in helping me switch seats.

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