Sunday, November 27, 2005

Snow, Turkey, Football, Photos

As previously mentioned, I headed to Maine for Thanksgiving. My parents retired a few years ago and spend most of their time in the Vacation State. The place is very much in the boonies of Maine (i.e. not Portland), but over two decades or so, the community has been slowly converting from antiques and mom-and-pops to a more modern economy. I noticed a Rite-Aid on the way up, which used to be some generic drug store. Maybe progress isn't the best thing for rural communities, but it was nice to order some decent Chinese food the night before Thanksgiving.

I flew into Boston and drove a rental up I-95. It started snowing not long after I arrived, and though there wasn't very much of it, the news reported all kinds of spin outs along the road. It continued to snow on Thanksgiving, and despite my pleas, my dad insisted on driving out to pick up some other family members a few streets over. His method of driving in the snow consists of going way too fast, easing off the gas and letting the car glide towards the intersection, then jamming on the anti-lock brakes until they stop the car. He turns slowly until he hits the next straightaway, then hits the gas again. As a result, all of the passengers pray that there are no cars coming through the intersection, because the car almost never stops where it should.

The feast was grand in both scope and stature. The bird was cooked perfectly, vegetables plentiful, cranberry sauce homemade - not in the shape of a corrugated tin can. As usual, my dad and I had a competition to see who could eat more... and as is becoming more common, I came out way ahead. The Falcons - Lions game was over by the time dinner started, but for some reason the Dallas - Denver game was nowhere to be found when the plates were cleared. It then became photo hour.

The family was very eager to see the photos I'd collected from all over Asia. Last year I conveniently forgot all of them, and I'd considered blaming the airline for lost luggage this year, but in the end I decided to suck it up and bring them. Again, it's not that I can't fake this stuff, and, oddly enough, it's not because I don't like lying to my family... it's because I hate the dog-and-pony show. The old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words holds true in the case of my family... every picture requires at least a thousand words to go with it, as question after question needs to be answered.

"How big is that?"
"Do they let you climb on it?"
"Why is it rude to point your feet at Thais?"

Et cetera. I realize they are very curious about this sort of thing, and they don't see me very often, but it's a bit tedious. Luckily my nephews decided that some wrestling was in order, so half of the photo viewing was done while I was grappling with kindergarteners, thus keeping the comments brief.

I got home just in time to watch the end of the Seahawks game... during which the Giants kicker missed three game-winning field goals. I'm starting to think that maybe this is the year that all of the Seahawks' bad luck comes to an end. They were the trendy Super Bowl pick the last couple of years, but this year, they've managed to stay under the radar. This is good.

Tuesday night I'm having dinner with Sandra. I'm still trying to figure that girl out. Earlier last week she wigged out because I called her "Sandy". Apparently that's just a no-no. Then she wanted me to come to Thanksgiving with her family, even though we've only been dating for a few weeks and she already knew about the plans I'd made to be with my family. This sounds awful, but I think I'm going to call up her sister and see if I can't get any details about what went on.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Kenji Johjima

The Mariners have signed Kenji Johjima to a multi-year deal. I'll admit I have no idea who this guy is, but I like his name. Kenji Johjima. It's easy to say. I looked him up on Google and he looks like he'll provide some decent pop in the middle of the order. His stats look a little like Jason Varitek's. You remember Jason Varitek, right? We traded him and Derek Lowe away to get Heathcliff Slocumb. Excuse me while I punch random objects within striking distance.

I have another top secret mission coming. This mission involves flying to Maine and eating large quantities of turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce and watching football and falling asleep on an uncomfortable second-hand couch. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Monday, November 21, 2005

Fraud

I've gotten a few non-spam e-mails recently. This one was probably the best of them. The few that I've posted before, I cleaned up the grammar and spelling on. I'm leaving this one as is, just as a point. If this is the way people communicate nowadays, this country is in trouble.

u r a fraud! u say ur a secret agent and the govrement pays for ur expanses but then u fihgt over the cost of a tv. if u were really a secret agent u would not care what it cost and b-sides you would prolly have a tv with a 2-way videoscreen so u could get misions without leaving home. fraud.

Do you people interact like this with each other on a regular basis? Do the ideas of correct spelling and perhaps capital letters confuse and anger people? It's bad enough when I see grammatically incorrect signs all over town. This is just shows blatant disrespect for the English language. Still, it deserves a response.

There are two sorts of people in the world: those who, if they were rich, would spend money carelessly without caring how much things cost or the possibility that the money might run out. An example of this is M.C. Hammer. The other sort of person is the one who, even though rich beyond reckoning, will not overspend on frivolity just because they can. An example of this is Warren Buffett.

One could argue that since it's not even my money, I shouldn't worry about spending twice as much for a TV than I think I should. Personally, I think it's just the opposite. If I'm spending someone else's money, particular yours, don't I have a responsibility to spend it wisely? When you hear stories in the news about things like misappropriated funds and "pork barrel buffets", don't they piss you off? Now how would you feel if you heard your tax returns were spent on a high-definition plasma TV?

That's what I thought. You should be thanking me for trying to save you money, not calling me a fraud.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

It's Not... Any Sort Of Battery Operated... Device!

Once in a while, this job is really fun. I don't want to say that I don't value what I do, or find it interesting, or attain some level of satisfaction from it. But fun isn't the word I'd use to describe it. There's usually a chance of death involved in any mission, on one side or the other, but because the chances on this one were next to none, I just got to sit back and enjoy it. After what happened, they are still not comfortable sending us deep into the fray, so I am learning to accept these cupcake assignments for what they are, and just relax.

The site: the Baikonur Cosmodrome, which, in the absence of MacDougal, proved surprisingly easy to find. The ESA just launched the Venus Express, a spacecraft designed to study the upper atmosphere of the planet Venus for the next five or so years. There's no point going into much more detail about it... just head over to space.com or the ESA's website and you can read all about it and probably download all sorts of pictures too.

The mission: generic security detail for the launch of the Venus Express. The European Space Agency, for whatever reason, decided to launch from Kazakhstan. I am not well versed in how the ESA does business, but I do know that Kazakhstan is quite decidely not in Europe, and I'm pretty sure there's someplace in Europe that they can launch things into space from. But the Cosmodrome is a veteran facility in such affairs, and ours is not the place to question. I've been told that the launches have revived the local economy, which was all but dead after The Fall. It's not the best place to visit, but it's not all that bad.

This launch had been delayed because of some technical problems... and there had been vague but credible threats of other types of problems. Most likely nothing, but worth being there for, especially since the type of security that they have for these launches is often somewhere between "lax" and "non-existent". The timetable for launch was "before November 24th". So it was entirely possible that I'd be there until the end of the month. Luckily, things went OK and they launched on Wednesday. I thought the security was more than adequate, and Abby agreed. But I enjoyed the vacation, and got a good view of the rocket firing off into space.

The funniest part of the entire mission, though, was the briefing. We were in the Fishbowl (our name for the glass-walled conference room) and Jennings mentioned the Venus Express. Gruber immediately interrupted him.

"Venus Express? Isn't that one of those battery operated sexual devices?"

There was a brief snicker amongst those in the room, immediately curtailed when Abby corrected him, "That's the Venus Butterfly." And as the words came out of her mouth, she immediately realized it wasn't the best idea to admit how knowledgeable she was about such things. A brief but awkward silence ensued, which Jennings summarily broke up. "It's not..." he flummoxed, "any sort of battery operated.... device! It's a spaceship! Now let's move on!"

Too late. He'd lost the room. It took a minute or two to die down, and the briefing continued with chuckles and watery eyes. I made sure to refer to Abby as БАБОЧКА (butterfly) for the remainder of the mission, for which I have a nice bruise on my shoulder from all the times she hit me.