Archive for February, 2007

Snow Voyage

Sunday, February 18th, 2007

Yeah so I sorta went a little crazy after my trip to Canada last week.

In general, travelling really stresses me out. It’s the worst kind of hell for me: close quarters with strangers, vague feeding schedule, inability to move for long periods of time, disrupted sleep schedule. My little world with all its so-called order gets turned on its puny little head.

Now add a blizzard and sub-freezing temperatures and I get a little bit fwango’ed. That’s right. I made that word up right here. Boo-yah.

Edit: Goddammit. I am so totally the sum of my environment.

On the way to Toronto (Pearson) airport at 5:00 AM, the taxi cab spun out on the freeway. No collisions, just a nice little trip across the lanes and back again. Poor driver. Am I really worth rousing a hard-working cabbie from bed at 5:00 AM during a blizzard to drive my sorry ass 45 minutes to the airport? In a freaking blizzard? I’m talking horizontal snow here. My existence on this planet confounds me.

Once at Toronto, the flight that I was supposedly booked on when I called earlier in the morning to rearrange my itinerary did not in reality get booked. As time wears on at the ticket counter, the ticket agent paints a slightly different reality in which flights to San Diego are about as common as space tours of Europa. Apparently, the cosmos decided that fair weather and a reunion with my family on Valentine’s Day was not an equation worth solving. When suddenly there appeared a glimmer of hope, a direct Air Canada flight right to San Diego. Another line, an extremely grumpy Air Canada ticket agent, and 6 hours later, I board the plane. An hour after boarding, an announcement that the plane is too heavy and must shed 14 passengers, either voluntarily or by evil computer. Lots more weighting, I mean waiting. Suddenly they decide that their weight issue is irrelevant, so we push back. Cheers from the fuselage. But not for long. Can’t get the right engine to start. Wait for maintenance. Wait for an open gate. Now we deplane. Change planes. Depart for San Diego about 3:00 PM Eastern. Arrive in San Diego about 6:00 PM Pacific, just in time for rush hour. I’ve not had a lot of sleep this week. Tired. So very tired. Probably need to pee, if only I could feel my bladder. No time. Urination is another one of those cosmic equations.

Finally get home, and the day hits me along with the weight of my bladder. So very tired. I refuse to go to work the rest of the week. My brain, she blows her fragile gasket. We’ll see how this all plays out this Tuesday.

This is nothing compared to what many others endured during The Great Bigass Blizzard of 2007 that Really Mucked Things Up for the Airlines. I don’t mean to complain. I’m grateful to all of the folks who made my successful journey possible. In hindsight, I should have postponed my return trip by a day or two. Nonetheless, the whole thing really stressed me out.

Posted in General | 4 Comments »

Tobogganing Safety Tips with Geddy Lee

Thursday, February 8th, 2007

Geddy Lee, bassist and vocalist for my all-time favorite rock band Rush, presents some handy safety tips whilst tobogganing this winter. Listen for the blood-curdling scream as he launches. He’s such a nerd. My hero!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIeZBeUTOSY

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Vehical Rescuatory Services

Wednesday, February 7th, 2007

The parking lot at the office where I work wraps around the building, offering a very secluded area for seclusive goings-on. Last year, I witnessed the use of this area for some Valentine’s lovemaking.

This year, it has become home to a stolen vehicle.

Said vehicle was parked in the same spot for a couple of days, with the driver’s side window rolled down and the hood popped. I called the license plate in to San Diego’s Finest, who verified that said vehicle was indeed reported stolen. Further inspection reveals that a hose is lying underneath the engine, indicating that the engine bay may be missing some parts. Interestingly, the ignition looks intact and the aftermarket stereo is untouched.

Perhaps the car was used in a crime? More plausible is that the thief was seeking a specific automotive part for his nefarious purposes.

Let’s hope that in my investigative inquisitiveness, I didn’t leave any fingerprints behind.

EDIT: The police stopped by and I looked under the hood with the officer. The radiator is gone. As far as car thieves go, this one was just about as courteous as you could hope for. Didn’t touch anything except the part he was after.

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Battlestar Galactica: over and done?

Tuesday, February 6th, 2007

For the last couple of years, Battlestar Galactica has been my Top 1 Favorite television show. And I have argued vehemently that it is the best damn show on television, period.

However, I am beginning to wonder whether it has jumped the shark.

During the first couple seasons, there was a great sense of drama and urgency as the surviving humans attempted to outrun the murderous Cylons. There was mystery about who the Cylons were and how many spies had infiltrated the human population.

But this last season, beginning with the settlement on New Caprica, has been largely disappointing. We had Fat Apollo, who in the off season while the Cylons weren’t watching managed to gain 100 or so pounds as well as command of his very own battlestar. We had the human insurgency attempting to disrupt the Cylons once they had found New Caprica and decided that occupation was preferable to extermination. The parallels with Iraq were way over the top and completely unnecessary, even going so far as to give Chief a beard so that we could sympathize with radical Islamic Jihadists. Finally, once the humans had managed to escape Cylon-occupied New Caprica, we get a romantic bullshit soap opera between Apollo and Starbuck, who have both married (but not to each other) and any time they see each other they’re giving each other longing looks of “what could have been…”

Even the opening credits are problematic. Throughout the entire run of Battlestar Galactica, the credits have claimed that the Cylons have many copies, “… and they have a plan.” Well, sure they had a plan in the beginning, but we saw how the humans foiled their plan. Now the Cylons are bickering amongst themselves and seem to have lost any sense of purpose or direction. Where is their plan now? The writers should change the opening credits to read “and they had a plan.”

Let’s hope that the writers can salvage this jewel in the next episode.

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Color me an import tuner

Monday, February 5th, 2007

I have become what I despise. Last week I bought a cold air intake for my Mazda3. Last weekend I installed it. And while I was at it, I advanced the engine timing to slightly increase compression, and added a 10 gauge wire from the throttle body to the battery’s negative terminal to give it a better ground.

The advanced timing means I’ll need to spend a little more on gas (89 octane recommended now). But the increased compression will theoretically give me a little more power. For more info about advancing the timing on Mazda engines, click here.

The added ground to the throttle body will theoretically improve throttle response and generally make things smoother. This car has a throttle-by-wire system instead of a traditional throttle cable, which means that when I step on the gas, computers decide where to put the throttle. Apparently there is a weak ground at the throttle body, and because of this weak ground, the chip in the throttle body doesn’t always communicate well with the rest of the power control module, and the poor communication results in poor engine responsiveness. At least that’s what all the folks who sell pricey grounding kits want to convince us. For $5 worth of cable and connectors it seems worth a try.

The biggie of course is the cold air intake. For the non-gearheads, a cold air intake replaces the stock air filter and assembly. The stock assembly draws air from the top of the engine, where air has been heated by the engine. The stock air intake assembly is also somewhat constrictive, meaning that the engine has to work harder to create a vacuum to draw air in. The cold air intake is essentially a 2.5″ pipe from the throttle body down to the front of the driver’s side wheel well, where the air is much cooler. Cooler air is denser and contains more oxygen, which according to the laws of thermodynamics burns with more energy. More energy means more power.

I was apprehensive that the cold air intake would be loud. So far I’ve found that under normal driving conditions, I don’t even know it’s there. But when the RPMs are pushed above 4000, I definitely hear a lower, throatier growl from the engine.

A strange thing happened to me when I blasted onto the freeway this morning. My face contorted into an unfamiliar expression, and I couldn’t contain it. I was actually smiling. While I hate street racers and all they stand for, I think I sort of understand the compulsion to modify cars with exhaust, intake, and headers. That sound is a siren song.

Posted in Automotive | No Comments »

I’m a sucker for toilet humor

Monday, February 5th, 2007

If you like the Matrix, and can’t get enough fart humor, then this video’s for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxQW9hyuZVE

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Autism as a psychological variance

Thursday, February 1st, 2007

In my last post about autism, I linked to a video showing that while an autistic person may appear to “normal” folks as having little to no ability to communicate, they do indeed have highly developed interpretive and communicative skills. This video reminded me of a link from awhile back on BoingBoing where a research team posits that autistic people do not have a mental disorder so much as they are a variant of the human species: a different kind of person.

You can read and hear more about it here: Rethinking Autism. There is a twenty-odd minute audio file there that I encourage you to give a listen if you are interested in this subject.

My own experience with my son, and for that matter with myself, corroborates this new approach to understanding autism. Currently, the psychological community defines autism as a mental disorder (as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) and as such, research into autism is focused on finding a cure. The research team interviewed in Rethinking Autism takes umbrage at that research paradigm, and argues that the model of autism as a mental disease is flawed. Instead, research should be focused on understanding what autism is. In the proposed research paradigm, autism is a variant within the human species in much the same way as homosexuality. Once we better understand autistic variance, we can address the organizational aspects of society that are problematic for autistic people.

One of the most frustrating aspects of parenting a child who is on the autistic spectrum is the problem of “fitting in” with society. Autistic people’s lives are difficult, not so much because of autism, but because it’s not socially acceptable to be autistic. If we have a greater understanding of the condition, then those who are afflicted would have an easier time finding their role within society.

Posted in Exploring Autistic Culture, Parenthood | No Comments »