What Forklift?

While J and I were shopping I noticed this sign.  She knew exactly what I was going to do.

I wonder how many forklift operators have been driven away and how long it took for the driver to finally discover that they had a "guest" in their trailer?

Do you know where I took this?

The Eyeballing Game

How good are you at eyeballing measurements? Try this puzzle out? The Eyeballing Game. The object of the puzzle is to come as close as you can to the proper measurement.  Let me know how you do! :)

Excellent Stalking Skills

Chargers Lose Again

On paper they lost but they actually had it won if it weren't for that late officiating error.  I think the reason Mike Shannahan went for two points instead of going into overtime was because he knew that the Broncos didn't deserve that TD.  He went for the riskier play and if they missed, then all is well and Chargers win.  Or am I giving him too much credit?

Snapple Real Fact #132

A crocodile cannot move its tongue..

The last thing you'd be concerned about if you're getting chomp-chomped!

Large Hadron Collider

We're still here!  If you're not a geek then you probably didn't know that they test fired the Large Hadron Collider today despite lawsuits trying to stop it because of fears that it might create a man-made black hole under the 17 mile site..

Although the chances are very remote,  some European physicists place the odds at something like 50 million to 1.  For a comparison, the odds of winning the lotto here in California is about 23 million to 1.

This reminds me of people fearing that detonating a atomic device would start an un-stoppable chain reaction destroying the earth back in the 40's.  And no, I don't remember it personally!  :)

Here's some big numbers related from this experiment: (from wired.com)

LHC FAQ in 140 Characters or Less

Particle physics is complicated. Tweets are not. So, naturally, answering your questions about the Large Hadron Collider in Twitter format, i.e. 140 characters or less, could help you understand some physics.

Q: WTF is a Large Hadron Collider?

A: Hadrons are the parent family for protons and neutrons. The collider will smash protons together to see what they're made of.

Q: What are ATLAS and CMS and all these other acronyms?

A: They are particle detectors. ATLAS and CMS are the big ones. Each detector is designed to carry out a set of experiments.

Q: How does the Large Hadron Collider work?

A: It smashes particles moving at near the speed of light together. Then, detectors look for very rare particles in the wreckage.

Q: Is smashing things together to look for progressively smaller and rarer particles really how particle physics is done?

A: More or less: yes. Theoretical physicists work out the math. The experiments get run to see whose math matches the world.

Q: Gimme the stats on the Collider? Factoid stats.

A: 17 miles around. 9,000 magnets. 7,000 scientists. $10 billion. Operating temp: -456.25 F. Power used: 120 MW. Network: 1.8+Gb/s.

Q: Who paid for the Large Hadron Collider?

A: You did! But not nearly as much as your European cousins. The US contribution stands at $531 million. Total cost: $10 billion.

Q: How does a particle detector work?

A: They work like digital cameras with 150 megapixels taking snapshots 600 million times a second! Then algorithms look for interesting stuff.

Q: Is there an end 'product/goal' that the average Joe will eventually see from these experiments? ie:teleportation?

A: Not directly, but confirmation that physicists understand the universe would be nice. And you never know. The engineering can lead to other things.

Q: When you smash particles at nearly the speed of light isn't that going to release a lot of energy?

A: Yes. The highest-energy collisions will reach 14 trillion electron volts.

Q: How many particles are actually colliding?

A: Hacked Wikipedia: The beam pipes contain 1.0×10-9 grams of hydrogen, which

would fill the volume of one grain of fine sand.

Q: Is the Large Hadron Collider a threat to human civilization and the existence of the Earth?

A: No. Einstein's relativity says it's impossible. And, just in case, studies of highly-energetic cosmic rays hitting earth rule it out, too.

Does the general population really care?  Not really...I just got off the phone with my friend and she says, "I'd rather be watching project runway!"  :)  Good Night.

Heather's First High School Volleyball Match

I drove out to watch Heather play volleyball in El Cajon after work today.  She made the varsity team as a freshmen so I'm proud of her!  The team lost but at least the conference matches don't start until next month so they have some time to work on things.

Pull My Finger

As an iPhone owner, I usually look over the apps that are available on a regular basis and pass on suggestions to my friends that have one also. But here is one application that you won't be seeing on the iTunes store because Apple rejected it stating (as claimed by the author) that it didn't think it would appeal to the iPhone/iTouch user. I told Jess about it and wonder what she would do if I snuck it on her iPhone (evil grin)

If you've seen the apps available through the app store, then you'll agree that this application would be in the top 50 for sure, or am I wrong? Honestly!? :)

Wash Your Hands

You've probably seen these signs in bathrooms before, but have you ever read one.  All restaurants are required to have a sign up that has a bathroom, or cooking for health reasons.  Of course you can't have a sign that says, "Hey you!  Wash your hands since you either just peed or took a dump!"

Well, a focus group said they would come up with some politically correct way of saying this so as not to let anyone realize we KNOW what goes on in this "restroom."  A requirement is that they needed to have Spanish translation also.  Here's the Spanish version:

"Laven sus manos antes de abandonar este lugar para volver al trabajo."

Here's the translation:

"Wash your hands before you abandon this place to return to work."

Didn't know I knew Spanish, eh?  The mentioning of bathroom or any other bodily functions has been left out, not even restroom.  So, remember to wash your hands before you abandon your restroom.  Oh wait, not restroom,  "this place."

Compact Car Parking

They're already marking off parking spots for cars of the near future.   But somehow I think this car is not compact enough for this spot!

If you were a cop, would you cite him?

Photoshop Beauty

Think about this the next time you see a magazine cover!

FREE Lunch

I'm not offering a free lunch!  Tuesday the lunch truck lady calls me on my cell:

E: I'm not going to be there since my truck broke down on the freeway.  Can you do me a favor and let everyone know?
S: Sure!  I'll make a little sign for you and post it at the exit.
E: I appreciate that.  I'll be back tomorrow with your nachos!
S: Good.  I was about to ask you that.  :)

Esther just gave me my lunch for free and that she really appreciated me helping out. :)

Take a Seat

How many of you would take a seat in this room? The walls are padded and the floor is made of rubber. The chair is solid plastic with many holes in it and I don't even want to guess what's on the floor. There are no windows!

Warning!

What can be implied by the fact that McDonald's customers must be told that their coffee is HOT and that KFC customers don't have labels that say, "Caution: You might find chicken bones in your bucket of Chicken."

I think one of the best warnings is: "This superman suit will NOT give you the ability to fly." Have you come across a warning that just seems stupid?

Happy April Fool's

I'm always thinking of some kind of prank to pull and today I feel like I get a free get out of jail card since it's April Fool's Day. At work, I did the hotkey to invert the monitor display since we got new computers and all I could do was hide in my cubicle and pretend that I knew nothing about what was going on...It was funny!

Of course, I played a joke on the softball league where I volunteer and have been getting lots of feedback :) So far about 45 people have fallen victim to my devious prank...

Did you do anything to celebrate April Fool's Day?

Bank Robbery

A man walks in a bank, gets in line, and when it is his turn he pulls out a gun...and robs the bank! Just to make sure he leaves no witnesses, he turns around and asks the next customer in line... '

Did you see me rob this bank?' The customer replies, 'Yes!'

The bank robber raises his gun, points it at the customer and BANG! Shoots and kills him. He quickly moves to the next customer in line and says to the man, 'Did you see me rob this bank?' The man calmly responds 'No, but my wife did.’

Lost Churches

Someone sent this to me this afternoon:

One of the local television stations in South Louisiana actually aired an interview with a woman from New Orleans. The interviewer was asked if the complete devastation of the churches in the area had affected their lives.

Without hesitation, the woman replied,' I don't know about all those other people, but we haven't gone to Churches in years. We gets our chicken from Popeye's.'

Check out the Shoes

After coming back from lunch with my friend, I noticed his shoes. I thought that they were rather interesting and asked if I could take a picture. He said sure and wanted to know if they were going on my blog..."Of course!"

My other friend and I were giving him a hard time about his pink shoes with green and brown trim. It was all in good fun... What do you think?

Hunger

Alex and I went to the deli down the street and decided to eat outside. We noticed a group of tourists sitting across from us and then went on about our business. As we were almost finished, a homeless guy reached deep into the trashcan and got some bread and started eating it.

The guy started reaching into another trashcan and the lady tourist walks up to him and reaches out a $10 bill and says, "Go inside and get yourself lunch." The guy looks at her and shakes his head. She tries several times to get him to take the money but he refuses. He takes another bite from the bread and walks away.

The lady looks at me, and I raise my eyebrows giving her that, "You tried...What else can you do?" look.

I have nothing to write about

Yup. I'm having one of those days but I didn't want to leave the 9th blank with nothing here. :)

Snapple Real Fact #92

Fish can drown.

I guess we assuming that it's water in our lungs that kills but it's the lack of oxygen that is the culprit in drowning. So...if something is reducing the oxygen from the water then a fish could drown in water.

Parents at Games

I was shooting softball games today with my mp3 player soft enough so that I could hear what was going on. Sometimes I take photos of the parents in the stands and how they react to certain calls. For the most part the parents are there but not paying attention.

There have been plays that I have captured where the spectators say, "Come on blue! That was a terrible call." I look at the photo and see that the umpire was right. Sometimes they come up to me and ask, "Did you get that? She was safe, right?" I tell them they have to wait until I post the pictures on the web and they can check for themselves.

For the most part, the games give parents a way to catch up with their friends and what's going on with everyone lives pausing enough to see an exciting play then back to chatting.

Many of the umpires ask me to get their best side. As I took this photo, the spectators laughed and said, "You go, Sam!"

I wonder if he'll want a 5x7 of this?

Only Drink Domestic Water

Non-domestic water is only good for irrigation or so the sign says. The Spanish version says, "It's prohibited to drink this water. Only for Watering."

I should have you guys send me photos of signs that you find interesting.

Endless Campaigning

Does it just seem that this campaigning takes way too long? Non-stop promises until November coming out of both camps and of course they can reverse, fix, and make everything better.

I wonder if anyone has compiled a list pre-election promises versus actual accomplishments. Real accomplishments, not the speech they give in January saying, "See...employment was up in December by 25%" and failing to note that it was part-time Christmas help that will be let go after the return season is over.

Oh...and who is voting for Ralph Nader?

Parking Lot Behavior

When you drive into a major parking lot it's only natural that someone would want to park closest to the entrance and at first that's easy. But how much effort to do you go into trying to attain that perfect spot?

Do you head right to the door and keep on going back further trying to get the closet that you can get? Are you the type that will wait as people are leaving and eyeball them and ask them if they are leaving as is common on college campus?

Have you ever "fought" someone for a parking spot because you had your blinker on for 5 minutes waiting for grandma to pack her trunk and someone just zoomed right into it from the other side?

I used to have a handicap parking placard and people would stare at me as I got out of my car, but would instantly change their expression when they saw me help my mom out of the car with a cane. My mom loved that we could park right in front! Basically this was the only time that I would go to the front.

Personally, I just park in the sparse area and beat those that are circling the lot. Heather can attest to that as I say, "My legs work perfectly fine how about yours?!" :)

Disposable BS Bags

It has been mandated that each employee place one of these bags next to their desk and give it to the appropriate person when the BS meter goes off.

Don't worry about running out as we've order a huge supply of these bags!

Pick a Number

A conversation I had with my daughter Heather many moons ago:

Heather: Daddy, what's your favorite number?
Me: 5,693,452
Heather: No, I mean like a smaller one, between 1 and 10.
Me: Hmmm, okay. 7.94!
Heather: Daddy...a number with no point in it. And it can only be 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, or 10.
Me: But you said between 1 and 10. You just included 1 and 10.
Heather: [stares at me with daggers]
Heather: A number from 1 to 10 ONLY with no point in it. You can pick the 1 or the 10 too.
Me: 9
Heather: Hey that's my favorite. Pick another one.
Me: 5
Heather: I forgot what I was gonna tell you.

iPhone

Yup, I went out and bought an Apple iPhone on Thursday night. So, I've been playing with it and I like it so far. I've moved all my contacts over, and loaded some music, customized it a little, and ran it through it's paces.

Some interesting things that are missing is GPS navigation, but it gives you a general idea of where you are when you load up google maps and tap on the find me button using the cell towers. There is no voice activated anything, no movie recordings, but the iPhone's pictures are really nice. The internet access is slow but usable and I like the auto wifi leech mode. The iPhone uses your wireless connection for iTunes, and for faster youTube viewing.

Heather likes to use the iPhone to get on her myspace page, and watch youTube videos while we wait for our orders to arrive when dining out. I've sent gmail, and done all that other internet stuff but was dissappointed in the web apps. I'm signing up for the SDK so that I can write some native applications in a little bit and so far I like my iPhone.

Snapple Real Fact #9

The average speed of a house fly is 4.5 miles an hour.

And how exactly does one get a fly to cooperate in this experiment?

War of the Roses on 92.5

Many of you keep asking me for the link for this and even though you can google it, I'll just link to it - War of the Roses. You kind of have to wonder when someone is just going to fake one of the stories just to see if they pull it off.

Just a fresher:
What is 'War of the Roses' in San Diego?