Stuff Archives

So, the NASCAR season is over for another year and yet again I reign victorious! After a somewhat edgy start, I don't think it was really in doubt as I picked my way through the winners in the 2011 NASCAR Race Competition.

I will again congratulate Tony Stewart on his fantastic run in the chase and his victory in the actual championship. It is interesting to note that he won five races this season, all of which were in the chase, and I was the only one who picked him to win a race all year ... thankfully on one of the races he won. And I only picked him to win once. Although most people gave up on this fantasy game, I do think it is slightly interesting as I don't think anyone really thought Smoke was going to do it until he crossed the finish line at Homestead. I think this is probably true of a lot of fans as you kind of were waiting for something to happen to him. Edwards was always going to be the pace setter and has to be disappointed with ending up second ... on the tie breaker. I have him with an average finishing position of less than 10 (9.31 to be exact) for the entire season which is amazing consistency ... but ... it's about the wins and at the end of the day, that's what Tony had.

And now back to me. Actually, I can't say I picked the most winners this season as that honor belongs to Karen. I think I just ended up with less crash and burn picks.

Now for next season - the computer is going to get an upgrade. Rather than randomly picking from the entire list of entrants, the computer is going to employ a lot more logic in its picks and promises to be a more formidable opponent.

Guess it's Thanksgiving, then Christmas, then time to plan the Phoenix and Vegas races.

So, I just landed in Burbank and was supposed to be picking up a car because I have to scoot round SoCal tomorrow. Starting in Passedina and ending up in Orange County. It's been a long time since I've rented a car as I've either been in taxis or been with someone else who's got a car. In fact, it's probably been five years or so.

Anyway, got to the rental car desk and was providing my details. They said that they saw I was going to be dropping the car off in Orange County and I said yes ... as well as the car having hand controls. On account of the fact that I need hand controls on a car to drive it.

Oh!

What do you mean Oh?

To keep a long story short, they didn't think they'd been notified, then they went into the record and said that the hand controls had been put into the remarks field and not the comments field. The remarks field doesn't print out on the site when they are prepping the cars blah blah blah.

Interestingly, I'm thinking - why is this my problem - the booking was made correctly, it's an internal error. Then I looked around and realized I was stuck at the airport with no car, so it probably was my problem. Anyway, I've made it to the hotel as they kindly drove me here. We're going to play a game of tag tomorrow. They're going to try and get a car ready in the morning and then bring it to me. I told them I have a 7.30 meeting so need the car by 7.00 and found out that was not possible. I've managed to get someone who I'm working with to pick me up from the hotel and take me to the first client I'm at. I've also reached out to someone else to see if they can come and get me and take me to the second client I need to get to for lunch about an hour and a half away. The rental car company are going to call me on my mobile when they are ready so they can find out where I am and deliver the car to me. Why do I get the feeling that they'll end up driving it to Orange County and handing it back in for me? It'll be amusing if that happens and I get billed for it.

So .... I got a note the other day from my cable TV service provider telling me that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was doing their first ever test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) on November 9th at 2.00 Eastern. Basically, there's a hooked up system where FEMA can send a message out over the TV and Radio stations if they ever need to let the population know there's an emergency.

Now, before we get into it, I will say that this system is extremely valuable as it is used regionally for alerts such as bad weather or, I do remember once, hearing an alert put out with the make, color and license plate of a car that had been used to kidnap a child.

But that said, an alert going out on TV and Radio ..... seriously? As opposed to sending out network wide text messages on the mobile phone networks and/or a system wide message on Twitter and Facebook. We have a TV, but we don't watch it. We record all the shows we like and play them back so we can skip through all the commercials. We only ever listen to the radio on the drive into work, so it's pretty unlikely that I'd get this emergency message if it were put out there and I'm pretty sure there's many people in similar situations. I'm just thinking that a nationwide emergency alert would need to be pretty serious and I'd have thought you'd want it to get to as many people as possible.

Follow that up with the fact that they are putting a lot of effort into telling people this test is coming as there are communications problems with the equipment in place. The hope is that they can change the message in most cases to say something like “this is a test” but in other cases, they aren't able to make the change and it will say “this is an emergency”. Ah ha! In order to combat this, they can overlay the visual message with sound and those people that see the emergency message will hear someone saying this is a test ..... but what about the deaf and hard of hearing? Well, they're hoping that people in the communities will tell them this test is going to happen and that they shouldn't worry ...... but they are working on updating the communications equipment.

Back to my earlier point of using modern communications means to get the message out. I would think the message would spread quicker if it were posted on the social media sites. In fact, you could argue that there's already been a test of the EAS when the Phillies fans heard about the death of Osama Bin Laden during the Phillies-Mets game and started chanting “U.S.A! U.S.A!” whilst holding up their phones with the news on them. I could suggest that FEMA put together a video of a cat singing about the emergency and posting it on YouTube as that would likely go viral faster than the news would spread through TV.

I was filling my car up with petrol the other day and noticed the Google Camera Car pass by. I just looked on the Google Maps Street View and found myself filling up at the local Chevron station. I'm somewhat obscured by the post, but there aren't many people with Challengers filling up at that station and it's obviously me.

Here's the link, but I'm not sure how long I'll be on there as I'm sure they're constantly updating the site. Google Rag

And here are some screenshots for when the actual images online of me go.

This was a video played on a course I just attended. I found it very interesting so thought I'd share. Would probably have rather seen the facts in the middle be about facebook as opposed to myspace, but I guess the video got outdated by the time it was released.

(Unfortunately the video is no longer available https://youtu.be/4TKbIidbyhk)

Interesting the things you come across when you end up randomly browsing the Internet. I was doing a quick search to see how many birding species there are in the UK on the basis that I thought it would be similar to the US. But I was wrong. There are apparently over 10,000 species in the world. Nearly 1,000 in North America and about 550 in the UK. These number vary a bit depending on which site you go to which is why I've been a little vague in the numbers. Anyway, one of the sites referenced a “Sammy the Black Winged Stilt” which apparently lived at Titchwell from 1995 for some period of time .... then further down the list, someone mentioned that there was a YouTube tribute to Sammy .... and one thing leads to the other and next thing you know you're watching some random video .... so I thought I'd share.

.... Oh! I had toast for breakfast this morning.

(Unfortunately the video is no longer available https://youtu.be/OSpy9TnTftw)

Yet again, I appear to have been caught out by the old “more than one airport in a city” gag. This time the honor belongs to Chicago, last time it was Houston. Now, I've just arrived and that means that I did indeed go to the right airport on the basis that the plane took me there. The problem is that I arranged to meet a colleague here to travel to the hotel together, but he went to a different airport. In fairness, I figured out on the flight over that there were two airports and I did a search when I landed to see that there were no direct flights from San Jose to Chicago Midway which likely meant he was going to the other airport. I think he also figured it out too and there was no harm done, it just seems that I've fallen foul of this a couple of times now.

OK, moving on, one thing that amused me was that there was an announcement for a “Richard Balless” to report to customer service. And I always thought a dick and balls came together.

I suppose this was bound to happen sooner or later given the amount of traveling I've been doing recently ..... And in the interest of public service, here are the tips from me lessons learned.

1. If you're going to a city with more than one airport, take note of which one you're flying from. Arguing with a ticketing agent (or ticketing machine as it is these days) doesn't get you anywhere and they won't produce a plane just for you if you are at the wrong airport. At least the good news is that I didn't have time to check in online, otherwise I'd have probably queued at security before I'd realized I was in the wrong place.

2. Taxi drivers can be incentivized to get you to your destination in time. Even after you've been told you can't make it. About $20 does the trick.

3. Make sure you really want to be in a taxi with an incentivized driver. Be prepared for lots of horn sounding and creative use of pavements/sidewalks etc. On the bright side, this can help with a fear of flying. You'll be so scared from the drive that the thought of the plane crashing is actually rather relaxing.

I have to say, this was the closest I've been to missing a plane and still catching it, which was good as it was the last flight out and I would have been stranded for the night. I've missed a couple in the past, but have always managed to hop on the next one.

I'm feeling a little bit upset with Microsoft right now. The computer I use at home for the TV, this webserver and my home email server was running Vista and I upgraded it to Windows 7 in order to accommodate a new TV tuner that required the updated operating system.

I bought the upgrade and performed the install a few months back and everything was fine and dandy.

Then ... the hard disk crashed. No idea what happened to it, but it wont read and I (still) can't seem to mount it (computer won't boot when it's attached). Annoying, but these things happen. So, I switched some drives around and then re-installed the operating system.

Now here's the kicker. I used the Windows 7 upgrade disk to install the operating system given that this is what I need on the machine. No problems with the install, loaded perfectly without any issues.

And everybody lived happily ever after .... at least for 30 days anyway.

A message pops up on the screen telling me I don't have a valid license for the operating system. I enter the license and it tells me it's an upgrade license and not a clean install license. OK - makes sense, but I can enter the Vista key and then the W7 key .... hmmm, no way to do this, so phone the help desk.

The help desk was incredibly unhelpful, although I'm not necessarily going to blame the individual I was talking to as they're working within the bounds they're told to. The result was to tell me that I have to install Vista first and then install the upgrade on top as I only have an upgrade license. Now, the fun part is that I'd thrown away the Vista recovery disks thinking I'd no longer need them. I explained this to the person I was talking to and they told me I had to go back to the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and get the Vista disks from them.

I will give credit where credit's due - HP provided me with excellent service for the machine and sent me the recovery disks and we're now up and running fine (after re-installing Vista and then upgrading to W7 - what a memorable weekend that was).

Microsoft .... not so much. I find it hard to believe that I couldn't validate my license keys and get something that would work for the machine. There's no piracy going on here - I'm trying to use a product that I have a valid license for and I have to go through this ridiculous procedure of re-installing one operating system and then upgrading the next.

I've got quite a number of Microsoft products form Operating Systems to XBoxes. I keep getting told to look at Linux and the Playstation. Maybe it's time to listen.

Wow!! I've just caught up with the Premier League results and I have to say I'm somewhat shocked. That was a real trousers and pants down, let's get out the paddle and administer a thorough spanking. Man United 8 Arsenal 2. I haven't seen any interviews, but my guess is the only thing Wenger could say is “please sir, may I have another.”

I know there have been some big results like Spurs 9-1 thrashing of Wigan, but that's Wigan and they don't have the resources of Arsenal. Also, full credit to Wigan for taking the thrashing and then bouncing back - at least not letting it destroy the team. Being a Leicester fan, you have to take your beatings every now and then. They're going to happen - just move on and focus on the games you can win. But this is Arsenal. A team that's used to sending the message, not receiving it.

Based on the little I see, it seems as if Arsene's plan is to sign younger and lesser known players as opposed to Chelsea and Manchester City that seem to want to compete over who can spend the most money. Maybe I can get William signed up to play for them next week .... he couldn't do any worse.