September/October 2003 Surly Bastard Journal

20031030 [0900 CET] Leusden, NL. Travel roundup. Monday I went to see Haleakala NP. Despite the clouds still a very nice drive and some good views including Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea sticking up through the clouds. On the way down I checked whether my flights were still scheduled (with the fires in LA and all that), and they were, so I spent the rest of the day driving around the west side of the island. That's a nice drive, narrow and winding. I know some other people who'd love it, too. Grabbed a taco and a quesedilla at the Queen something-or-other mall on the way back to the airport, and wiled away an hour or so at Borders; more interesting than hanging around the airport.

I managed to get isle seats on economy plus (extra leg room) or exit rows (even more extra leg room) all the way from Maui to Amsterdam. Now that does help, you (or at least I) can stretch my legs. Light chop occasionally over the Atlantic, otherwise pretty smooth sailing. Pretty full flight from Maui, reasonable space from LAX, and quite a lot of space from IAD. After all those little toy jets (717, 757) the 777 is a quite nice and spacious aircraft.

Spent the rest of yesterday unpacking, going through email, picking up my car from the barn, and generally catching up. I've got a box of paper mail left to do, and some minor repairs here and there.

20031026 [2305 HAST] Kahului, HI. Good flight to Maui yesterday. Still, I'll reitterate my observation: why the **** doesn't Hawaiian wash their planes more often, or at least the windows? Oh well. ITO-HNL was once again window seats for all, HNL-OGG was filled to capacity. The guy next to me was an EMT out of CA here on vacation, plus some vague mumblings about getting married, "helping out a girl with her visum." Now while I'm not exactly up to date on the latest changes in US immigration law, I think that's at least frowned upon. And here I am, someone he hasn't seen before, wearing a CHP ball cap so I could potentially be an off-duty cop or have some other connection to law enforcement, and he's blabbing his mouth off. Not too bright, in my opinion. Nice guy though.

Maui is pretty. I was planning to do the Hana hwy and Haleakala NP today, but Hana hwy and the southern drive (rte 31) took enough time that I'll do Haleakala tomorrow. It's pretty hot though.

Random observations: The food court at Maui Marketplace is good for getting decent, not too expensive food.
Smell. Whatever smell there is, you get used to pretty quick, but when you step off the plane you really do notice it. Big Island/Kona and Hilo smell like a greenhouse. Oahu/Honolulu has the usual hot big city smell, not really all that much different from , say, LAX. Maui/Kahului smells like a greenhouse where something's been getting a bit ripe. Not unpleasant, but if you smelled it in your fridge or pantry you'd probably investigate and either eat it real quick or chuck it.

Car: Dodge Neon SE (Stripped Edition). Yes, finally. For the islands I've been booking EC (pretty much a Daewoo Lanos/Toyauto Yaris) with automatic upgrade to CC (Neon). So far I've gotten a Stratus and an L200, and I was beginning to wonder if they actually had any EC/CC or just upgraded everyone. Well, I've got that Neon, and I actually spotted a Yaris in the lot.
This is pretty basic. No central locking, no cruise, manual windows and mirrors, and of course no ABS and a 4-cyl engine. Still, it's reasonably comfortable and reasonably stable on the road even if you can't really throw it around without the tires screaming in protest - but that's normal for standard cheapy sedans around here. Still, for the money (according to the website around 12 grand) I'd say it's OK.

20031025 [0019 HAST] Hilo, HI. Good flight HNL-KOA-ITO, but does Hawaiian ever wash their planes? I guess island hopping at relatively low altitudes tends to get more dirt on planes, but it does leave the windows too dirty to get good pictures. Nice hop KOA-ITO, you get a really good view of Mauna Kea. I don't know how they can make money on that hop, though. After those who only went as far as KOA deplaned I doubt there were more than 20 people left on the aircraft. Window seats for all... ITO is a fairly efficient airport, by the time I'd made my way to the luggage conveyor my stuff was already there.. F picked me up, dropped my stuff off at the hotel, and we went into town for a round of drinks with some coworkers of her.

Interesting day today, getting to see the inside of the Maxwell and UKIRT telescopes. Not something you get to see on the $80 or whatever stargazing tours... Good lunch and dinner afterwards, too, plus a quick trip to Walmart to replace a carry-on that was starting to fall apart. Flying to Maui tomorrow.

And finally, sniff, a goodbye to Concorde. Yeah, I know she was noisy, uneconomical, and in this age of political fucking correctness "environmentally unsustainable", burning more fuel per passenger mile than just about anything else bar space flight. But damn it, wasn't she beautiful? And it was one of the few planes that still evoked some notion of romance in air transportation. I regret that I never had a combination of the disposable income and time to take a trip on Concorde, and yes, that does make me a bit sad. I don't know when we'll next see supersonic air transport again. I hope it's in my lifetime, and I hope it's something more glorious than a 380 or 777 with bigger engines, stuffing as many pax as possible in a spam can. Don't get me wrong, it's cheap, it's convenient, and it's even reasonably comfortable, but glorious it ain't.

20031022 [2340 HAST] Waikiki, HI. Oahu roundup. Good flight in, but the windows were to dirty to get good pictures. Went into town in the evening, caught a Hula demo, got some food, and generally just wandered around.
Pearl Harbor/Arizona memorial: Impressive. But what a fucking waste of good men on both sides. To say nothing of the carnage that ensued.
Drove around the island on Tuesday. Now it isn't a very big island, so that took all of about an afternoon. Yeah, I s'pose I could've gotten out even more, but at some point you decide you just go for a nice drive.
Stayed close to the hotel today, spent most of the afternoon on the beach. Read a bit, swim a bit, lather, rinse, repeat. Hey, being a tourist in a tourist town, gotta do that at some point, right? First time in my life, as far as I am aware. Fun for a couple of hours, but I can't for the life of me understand how people can do that for several weeks. Even though I used sunscreen I think I overdid the sun part a bit - I'm fairly red at the moment. Oh well. Also the first time in years I did any swimming. I guess the last time must've been when I was in jr high and my mom still had that red Datsun, so we could get down to the Center Parks pool. That must've been, what, 13 or 14 years ago? Fun though, probably should swim slightly more often than that...
I'm probably going to see some touristy stuff over on the western side of the island, and flying back to Hilo 1645 to arrive there 1823, one stop at Kona. I called F tonight, and she'll pick me up from the airport.

The hotel, Aston Honolulu Prince, is OK. The room is huge - OK, so I got an upgrade - but the exterior corridors and stuff are definitely in need of renovation. Room service seems to be playing a game of "guess what'll be replenished today". I started out with 4 bath towels, 4 towels, 4 washcloths, 2 little bottles of shampoo and 2 pieces of soap in the bathroom. I remove the shampoo bottles, those are actually useful. Monday there were 2/3/3/0/2. Plus the piece of soap I'd used, which hadn't been removed. Which is fine with me, I thing removing those pieces of soap after having been used for only one night if the guest is staying is unneccesarily wasteful. Tuesday we were at 4/4/3/1/3. Today we were at 3/4/2/1/3. Don't ask me. They're also good at charging everything seperately, which I don't like. Guess I've been staying in too-low-range motels, but I'm used to paying for a room and having stuff like parking, local calls, etc, included. Parking is $9/day, and there were no spaces available the first day. Local calls are $.75. Now I don't even care all that much for a couple of lousy bucks. I mean, if I had to worry about a $.75 call I shouldn't be on this island. What I do care about is being nickle and dimed. I don't like that one bit. Same as with, for example, airlines. USAirways invited me to pay $10 for airline food. I don't think so. I'll bring my own, thank you very much. United seems to be able to offer lower fares and include food service. And on the SFO-KOA leg, that food wasn't even half bad.

On rereading the first paragraph I noticed I'd actually written Perl Harbor. Fixed now. I'm not expecting anyone but fellow sysadmins and developers to get this reference.

I'll have to allow some extra time tomorrow to get to the airport, the prez is in town, Pearl Harbor in the afternoon and Waikiki in the evening (for your information, HNL is slightly east of PH, and Waikiki is east of HNL, all within about 12 miles of each other). Of course the spooks don't want to divulge any actual information, so it's a bit of a crapshoot what roads will be closed/delayed/diverted. At least AF1 is going into Hickam AFB, not into HNL.
Warning: The next paragraph is satire of a somewhat sexually explicit nature. Skip if you don't like that kind of thing
Now this is the second time in less than a year that I find myself in the same area as the prez, both of us on the move. First time was early last November in New Orleans, when the motorcade passed within 100 ft of where I was standing. I think it's no secret I'm not some Bush fan or groupie, but this is ... disconcerting. I'm starting to get the feeling he's following me. Let's observe the facts: More image consultants and make-up artists and dressers than just about anyone. Likes hanging out with good looking, young, athletic guys, and at one time owned a whole team of them (Texas Rangers baseball team). A shitload of buff, well groomed guys with badges and guns constantly at his side. Some people have wet dreams about that. He's vocal about the sins of homosexuality, but doesn't (fortunately) take much action on that. Do we have a deep closet case here? He's very much not my type, and I'm no Monica Lewinsky, but the book and talkshow circuit deals... Nah, not my thing. Hell, he's only 2.5 years younger than my dad. I'm starting to wonder if a pre-emptive strike in the form of a stalking complaint might be in order. They'll probably make meeting the prez's desires part of the Patriot act or somesuch and take it out of the hands of courts that actually care about the constitution.

While checking GWB's birth date on Google I also came across this (from Google cache, original site seems unresponsive). I still haven't been able to figure out if that dude's serious. Considering the reli nutters GWB likes to surround himself with, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if he was.

Cars. On Big Island I had a Dodge Stratus SE. I'm not sure what that officially stands for, but "stripped edition" will do for now. Cassette, manual AC, central locking but no remote, no ABS as far as I could tell. Still, as a car, it's comfortable, it handles predictably (very important in my opinion), and it has the V6, which especially in a place as mountainous as Big Island is a good thing. Flat road cruising around 2200 rpm, sometimes a lot less. Of course it upshifts fairly asgressively, so it isn't all that unusual to see it doing 4000 rpm or even pushing 6000 on a steep incline. Saddle road to the Mauna Kea visitors center (which is as far as you're allowed to take a rental) it was constantly doing 6000 rpm at about 30 mph, pedal to the metal. That's a seriously steep road. Of course coming down I kept it in low gear to save the brakes. Did a couple of handbrake turns, and driving back Hilo to Kona to turn it in I pushed it a bit on Saddle Road. Even at speed the steering remains fairly predictable, although it would need some suspension work to tighten up the handling.
Here I have a Saturn L200. CD, 4-cyl 2.2 Ecotec, otherwise pretty similar to the previous vehicles. And of course I'd rather have a fairly bare but reasonably large vehicle than some loaded mini buzzbox. Although I certainly wouldn't mind finding a Renault Clio V6 in the rental stall... I haven't really driven it enough or hard enough to say much about handling. It's OK. Both fall in the category of "better than that @#$%^& Galant", even though they're officially class CC (Compact) rather than IC (Intermediate). The only advantage of the Galant over these was remote locking, bit you can get a remote kit for $40 or so from JC Whitney, so that isn't really a deal breaker.

20031018 [2115 HAST] Hilo, HI. Big island roundup. Wednesday I basically stayed around Hilo. See the town, take it easy, that kind of thing. The weather was pretty rainy, anyway. Hilo's an OK little town to spend a couple of hours.
Thursday was still pretty rainy, drove Saddle rd to 190 into Kona. Kona's already turning into a bit of a madhouse because of the Ironman competition on Saturday. Still, it's a fun atmosphere, too. For those of you who haven't heard of it: Ironman's a 2.4 mi swim (ocean...), 112 mi bike ride, and a marathon, ie. 26.4 mi if I remember correctly, run. In one day. I wonder what the grand prize on that one is, half a years board and services at a loony bin of your choice? Lots of ridiculously fit and good looking folks walking around, and stands from several dozen exhibitors. Including Volkswagen, who brought half a dozen Touaregs (SUVs) and set up a small off-road course. Now that was fun. I'll write more about that seperately, for now lets just say I talked my way into driving both the V8 and the V6 around. Back via 11, the southern half of the road around the island.
Friday the weather was a lot better, and I basically drove the roads along the east and north coasts of Big Island. Now that's very pretty, and along the way I got a great view (and I hope a couple of great shots) of Mauna Kea, a cloud about 1/3rd of the way up, and the 'scopes gleaming in the sunlight on the summit. Today, Saturday, the weather's half-n-half. I did some stuff around Hilo, taking it easy. Lyman house, Rainbow falls, PeePee falls/Boiling Pots, Mauna Loa macademia nut plantations...

I'm planning to leave Hilo tomorrow morning around 0900, should give me plenty of time to make it to the airport by 1215 (1222 is the date cutoff for the rental car), and then I've got all the time in the world to make it to the airport. Inter-island flights:
10/19 HA1137 1333 KOA - 1413 HNL
10/23 HA1148 1645 HNL - 1823 ITO
10/25 HA383 1133 ITO - 1220 HNL
HA162 1345 HNL - 1422 OGG

Lyman house is a nice museum, based on the collection of a missionary couple. While the museum is nice, it still left me, as a lot of similar museums have, with a sadness and anger about religious zealots marching in and fucking up the local population, or some population or group, in the name of the Lord. Same here, where missionaries tried to stamp out local culture which seems to have been quite well adapted to local circumstances, and introduce all that's good and western, including 18th century fashion (multiple layers, toe to neck, in the name of modesty - in a tropical rainforest? WTF were they thinking?), suppressing the local language, customs, etc. Yeah, they probably did some good in the process, but I wonder if it outweighs the harm they caused? Organized religion's getting more and more on my nerves. OK, some of it is outright hilarious, like the Episcopalians trying to go three incompatible ways at once about one bishop who, as far as I can tell from the news, was elected according to all proper rules and procedures. The again, reading something like this article just pisses me off something fierce. I am not really in favor of vigilantism, but if that thing gets built I wouldn't exactly cry foul if someone dynamites it, preferably with Phelps' sorry ass tied on top of it. The only qualm I'd have about that is making that idiot a martyr. He claims authority of the Bible. He, and his ilk, seem to be particularly fond of the old testament, particularly Leviticus. Applicability of that to Christians has always seemed somewhat strenuous to me. After all, Jezus and all that stuff is NT, not OT. Reading the very beginning of Lev.18 :
[2] "Say to the people of Israel, I am the LORD your God.
[3] You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you dwelt, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes."
Seems to me that 1- that's adressed to the people of Israel, in other words Jews, and 2- that this is to a large degree meant to distinguish the Israelites, in their daily life as well as in their belief, from the peoples they were surrounded by some 3000 or so years ago.

Still, if the Bible is what people like Phelps truly believe in, I think someone might need to remind him of Matt.7:1-5 and Matt.22:36-40. The beautiful words of 1Cor.13 might also be a good idea. In fact, maybe someone with a fax machine or better email than I have here on the road could send him a copy. Or 2, just in case the first one gets lost in transit. Or three, just to be sure. And in case he has trouble reading black letters on white paper, make some of those white on a solid black background.

Come to think of it, include the rest of Leviticus as well. It should be fun trying to see someone live up to all of that to the letter, including all the parts about offering stuff, including bits or all of birds and large domesticated animals, getting stoned to death for various infractions - and I'm not talking OD'ing on the spiky leafs here, tent camps, letting priests do healing (no more medical assistance for you...), and a shitload of do's and don't. If Hell's the price to pay for breaking OT laws, that's fine with me. I'll probably meet most of my friends down there, and that includes a lot of engineers so we'll build ourselves that thermal engine to use the hottest spot in Hell to cool some other place down to a nice, comfy temperature. But check on the Zealots. Phelps is from Kansas, so check into Lev.18:23 just to be sure. And someone examine his closet and see what's in there (pun intended). Lev.19:19 "nor shall there come upon you a garment of cloth made of two kinds of stuff." seems to practically guarantuee he'll go down there as well. And eternity with a bunch of right wing christian zealots is just too horrible a punishment for even the most unrepentant sinner.

20031014 [2100 HAST] Hilo, HI. Volcanoes is interesting as a park. Regrettably there are currently no active lava flows entering the ocean, so the real spectacular stuff just doesn't exist at the moment. Still, it's nice. It's a completely different atmosphere from Yellowstone, probably the closest thing. It's pretty to look at, it does make you sit up and realize the immense forces lurking just beneath the surface of the earth, and of course it makes for an interesting change to be essentially in a tropical rainforrest.

Today I did the rest of the rim drive, basically a couple of overlooks and the lava tube. The latter is exactly what the name implies: an empty lava tube, from the looks of the surroundings quite old, that you can walk through. The first part is developed, with lights and some grading, after which you can either go up or go into the second part, which is "bring your own flashlight". Fewer tourists there, and a nice, calm, quiet atmosphere. Once I was at the end of that and turned off the flashlight, it was indeed totally dark. Nice.
Then on a bit, halfway up Mauna Loa on Mauna Loa road. You get up to about 7000 ft MSL - the total mountain topping out around 14000 ft MSL.

Tentative planning: I'm staying here in Hilo until the 19th. The 18th has the Ironman triathlon in Kona, so I'm not expecting to be able to find a cheapish room there anyway. Arnotts Lodge here is OK. It's cheap, it's clean, it just isn't very quiet after about 0700AM... I'll get on the internet tomorrow (hopefully) to book a flight to Oahu (Honolulu) on the afternoon of the 19th. It's about 3 hours Hilo to Kona, I've got to turn the car in around noon, so I should beable to make a 1400 or so flight. I'll be flying back again into Hilo on the 23rd, meet up with F on the 24th, fly to Maui on the morning of the 25th, sightsee Maui until early evening of the 27th, and fly back home. I'll just have to put all that together, but I'm expecting that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

20031012 [2110 HAST] Hilo, HI. Life here definately moves at a slower pace. Kona (KOA) is the first airport that had an announcement on the PA that basically boiled down to "we don't have the key to start the luggage belt, we know where it is, we're sending someone over to get it." Kona is a fun airport, no jetway to be seen, planes park close enough to the terminal that everything's in walking distance, and the terminal itself doesn't have many walls; there's no need for them. Makes a nice change from stuffy terminals like LAX or IAD. The flight in was nice, although getting up at 0500 if you're not used to doing that isn't. SMF on a Sunday morning was a lot busier than I expected. The commuter hop SMF-SFO stayed around 11000ft, so I had a good view of northern California and a great view of the bay area, coming in from the north and doing a 180 slightly south of the airport. I obviously took a lot of pictures. The SFO-KOA was fully loaded. Slept through most of the flight. The hot breakfast was somewhat above average, and certainly better than the standard meals. I had a window seat, and the person next to me, an older lady, happened to be a geologist, so I got a free guided tour on approach over Big Island. Anyway, a pretty good travel experience.

Picked up the rental car, a Dodge Stratus. I'll do a review of that later, suffice to say for now that at least it handles better than the Mitsu.

Arnott's Lodge is a pretty decent place to stay. It's clean, has a fairly freewheeling atmosphere, and it's cheap. My main regret is that it doesn't have phones in the rooms, so I have no idea when or where I'll be uploading this diary update and some files I need to send out.

Apart from driving Kona to Hilo via hwy 19 (takes about 3 hours, taking it easy) I didn't do much today. Getting up so early, plus a 3 timezone jump, meant I was pretty tired by the time I'd checked in, 1530 (1830 PDT), so I decided to take a nap first, then go out to find something to eat. I got some stuff from the supermarket, and I'm finishing that while I'm typing up this entry. It's raining right now, hope it'll be dry tomorrow. If it is, I'll do Volcanoes NP first, if not, I'll decide later.

20031011 [2140 PDT] Sacramento, CA. Yesterday was good. Got up relatively late, washed some stuff, took it to the loaundrymat to dry it, then went junkyarding with a friend. We got a decent haul - I found some more cruise controls, side markers and third brake lights, he found a nice set of alloys, a couple of AMMs and some light units. Then on to dinner (Cafe California, Davis, CA), and by his job (UCD) to pick up some boxes and packing peanuts.

Today I shipped the junkyarding haul off to home by slow boat, figured out how to fit what stuff had accumulated in my car into suitcases in a way the airline would accept, got an extra carry-on sized suitcase, a couple spare headsets for the phones back home, a couple of dash repair kits and some JBweld, and a new pair of pants. The two pairs I'd brought with me are in dire need of washing, and not realy having the facilities for that it's easier to just buy a new pair. At $16, it's about half what it'd cost back home, too. I seem to have lost some weight, a size 36 fit me well (I usually buy 38), although I admit cargo pants tend to be a bit looser anyway than jeans. I've set my alarm for 0450, wakeup call as backup for 0500, and then it's off to Hawaii for 2 weeks.

20031010 [0105 PDT] Sacramento, CA. Reno to Sac via I395 - NV431 - NV28 - hwy 50 - CA49 - I80 is a nice drive. The weather being great also helps.
The Reno/Sparks Pick-n-Pull was rich pickings. First there was a virtually unscavenged '69 or '70 (so sue me, I didn't check the VIN) 142 with the interior AC unit still in place. I've been looking for one of those for years. I obviously grabbed it; the engine-bay stuff was gone already and the lines plugged, so I'll have to check the interior unit for leaks before mounting it. Otherwise, I don't care, I was planning to do the engine bay stuff with more modern components anyway. I might even fit a newer evaporator into that interior unit to improve efficiency. Still, I'm happy. Even if I don't find a single useful part tomorrow, it'll've been worthwhile. Of course I also found a complete CC for a B230F 7/9, and about a dozen side markers and other lighting units (3rd BL, under-hood light...). A very good haul for a single yard. Combined with the PS unit that's still sitting in Bob's garage in Clearwater, FL, this means my 145 is eventually going to be pretty full spec. Having my hands full means I didn't hunt for door edge markers, but I'm planning to do that tomorrow; I'm basically looking for edge markers that I can fit into the metal of 200-series doors, a non-original but useful upgrade to the 145. I have no idea yet what type and brand of car has what I'm looking for. Anyway, I'm pretty darn happy about finally having found a 140 AC unit.

20031008 [2325 PDT] Reno, NV. So I changed my plans. Having not gotten as far as I'd have wanted to yesterday I decided to just head down I80 today and arrive at a reasonable time (1940 PDT). That will allow me to go over the pick'n'pull here in Reno tomorrow morning, then take the scenic route (via Lake Tahoe) to Sacramento. A bit more pick'n'pull hunting on Friday, and taking it easy. Saturday will basically be relaxing and "housekeeping". Removing and sorting the stuff currently in the car, run a load of laundry so I won't run out of underwear, and try to fit it all in existing luggage, catch up on some paperwork that I'd promised someone would be done by last week...

Of course the first talk of recalling Scwarzenegger has already arrived. C'mon people, y'all made a mockery of the recall process before, doncha think it'd be nice to at least wait until he's in office and has had a year or so to prove (or disprove) himself? Even the past recall is questionable at best. The recall procedure was meant to be a last resort to remove a governor that acts with total disregard for the public. You can agree or disagree with Davis, but the recall procedure wasn't meant to allow essentially one rich bugger (Issa) to "buy" himself a recall.

20031007 [2250 MDT] Evanston, WY. Rocky Mountains NP is nice, but it took me much longer than expected, so as darkness fell I decided to take CO14 to WY789 to I80, and clock up some miles rather than take hwy40 all the way to SLC. You don't see much after dark anyway. I'm still about 2 hours short of where I hoped to be, but it's enough for tonight.

M6 Evanston used to be something else first, so it's one of the few Motel6's that doesn't look like the standard product. Pretty nice.

Anyway, driving RMNP is fun. You get some very good views, go all the way up to 12200 ft MSL, and the drive in and out is pretty, too. To be honest, I wouldn't drive a long way out of the way for it, but if you're in the area (to within a couple'hundred mile or so), it's a good way to spend a day.

Breaking news: I'm watching CNN right now, and am hearing the speech of Californian governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger. So he got it. Good for him. Now lets sit back, break out the popcorn, put some Wagner on the stereo, and see where this goes. I wonder whether he'll be the next Ronald Reagan, or the next Jesse Ventura...

Some random thoughts:
- This isn't the best part of the country to be vegetarian in. You won't starve, but ordering a sub a couple of days ago the guy looked absolutely flabbergasted that someone would order a "veggie delight" (Subway...). I actually had to point it out on the menu. Then yesterday, late evening, getting some food at the Dennys in Ft Collins. Sweet little old lady waiting the table. Everything on the menu had meat in it, so I asked if they could do the omelet without meat. "You don't want any meat at all, sir?" No, I don't. Then again, that got me the 99c side salad for free. She came by a couple of times to ask if it really was OK, and to ask if I'd been a vegetarian for long, and if I felt better for it. Well, having been a vegetarian all my life I don't have anything to compare it to, so I wouldn't know. I feel good, so apparently it works for me. She then told me her son had been vegetarian for a while, but not anymore. And obviously she hadn't learned much during that time.
- Custer State Park makes money from livestock sales (hey, fine with me), and from hunting. They sell off 10 licenses (or whatever they're called) to shoot a certain species of bull, and that's apparently a a special enough privilege that people are more than willing to pay $4000 for it in advance. Plus their own costs, obviously. "The fee is returned to unsuccessful applicants", so there are more people than licenses. I still have to wonder about the kind of mindset that's willing to fork over 4 grand for the right to kill an animal you don't need for food, that's never bothered you (that, in fact, you probably haven't seen before in your life), and that isn't a threat to you, just to mount its head over on your wall. Hunting for food (and other materials that a carcass can provide) I can understand. Even though present conditions allow me to be a vegetarian, I could easily imagine circumstances in which I'd do the same. I would consider killing an animal if it was required for the survival of someone else even if I could remain vegetarian myself. As an aside: I do think that if you're willing to eat it, you should be willing - and preferably able and skilled - to kill it yourself. People willing to eat (for example) beef but get all upset at seeing cattle hauled off to the slaughterhouse are, in my opinion, hypocrites. Killing in self defence, sure, and I wouldn't necessarily exclude H.Sapiens from that. Most of Europe should probably become just a bit less squeamish about that. Killing an animal that has (usually through no fault of its own) a nuisance animal before it becomes necessary to kill in self defence, yeah, OK. But killing just for the heck of it? Sorry. That doesn't fly with me.

20031007 [0045 MDT] Ft. Collins, CO. Badlands NP has a rugged beauty, much like Death Valley. Although it looks inhospitable, it is actually quite (well, relatively) fertile grassland, so there has been human habitation for a long time. First of course Native Americans leading a nomadic existence, using a simple method of buffalo hunting: Create a stampede in the herd, direct them to a convenient cliff, and you basically get to keep the ones that don't manage to turn or stop in time. Then homesteaders, most of whom quickly found out that this arid land is not suitable for small scale farming. Now it's basically large (multi-10K acre) farms capable of using large areas of low yield grassland. "Make it up in volume" to put it in dot-com terms.
And yes, I like it. It's beautiful, it's rugged, and there weren't too many tourists.
Before going to Badlands I stopped at Wall Drugs, a Wall, SD legend. It's a cross between a drugstore, general store, tourist trap and whatever else they could think of. Fun. Only in America.

Today, first the South Dakota air museum. Pretty much a standard collection of military hardware, plus a reasonably interesting if seemingly still under development display of a Minuteman control trainer, and during the summer also tours to a decommisioned Minuteman silo. Still, it's always nice to see those old toys, and at their admission price (free) it's nice to spend an hour or so. I then started heading back. I'm trying to avoid the interstates, at least during daylight hours. I'm in Ft Collins, CO, now, going to Rocky Mountains NP tomorrow and on via hwy 40 to UT, then probably either US50 to Carson, NV and Sacramento, or US50 to US6 to CA120 through Yosemite and then on to Sacramento. Whatever I feel like at the time. Just taking it easy this time, Interstates are great for getting somewhere fast without seeing much of what's in between. No need for that.

20031004 [2235 MDT] Rapid City, SD. Mount Rushmore is also impressive, but after seeing Crazy Horse first it is obvious it's on a smaller schale. You can get a lot closer though, enabling you to see much more detail. The atmosphere is more of a theme park than a national park. Although technicaly part of the NPS a lot is run by a concessionair, so you have to pay for parking, even if once you're in it's the usual brown signs and rangers/NPS staff everywhere. Of course it is technically unfinished. The artist, Gutzon Borglum, died in 1941, and his son decided that it should be left as is, so if you look closely the right face (Lincoln) is still a bit "blocky" around the edges. Without wanting to get into the debate of inspiration vs. perspiration, even when alive Borglum was assisted by a quite substantial workforce. Crazy Horse, on the other hand, was largely done by Korczak Ziolkowski himself, later assisted by his sons and occasional additional crew as finances allowed. That also explains the difference in completion speed.

After that I spent the rest of the day touring more of the Black Hills, Custer State Park, part of Wind Cave NP, and a couple of dirt roads, until it got dark. I like this area, so I think I'll be coming back here some day with a 4WD and high detail maps (Gazetteer or USGS), throw a sleeping bag in the back and explore the back roads.

Badlands tomorrow, and then I'll be slowly making my way back to Sacramento. The weather's still great, feels like mid-70s today and according to the weather channel Badlands might well be in the high-70s to low 80s. I'll be trying to avoid the interstates, just taking it easy rather than the high speed long distance driving I'm naturally inclined to. No need for that yet.

Looking in the guidebooks and on the 'net I see that I'll probably be coming back here to Rapid City again tomorrow night. Not much by way of lodging from Badlands on down until you hit I70, which would mean a fairly uninteresting drive back through Nebraska and Colorado. Might as well come back, head west into WY and then down into CO, much more to see.

I also found out that the rental car doesn't seal very well around the trunk. A couple of days of dirt roads are good for finding out that dust gets into even a closed trunk. On the other hand, the combination of lonely yet quite good dirt roads and a rental car is also good for practicing handbrake turns.

[0135] In one of the in-flight magazines on the way in I'd read an article about subsequent flights on a ticket being dropped if the system doesn't show you on a previous leg. Things in Amsterdam having been somewhat disorganized I started wondering if that could've happened to my ticket, so when I got back on the net this evening I looked up the number for UA int'l reservations and called them. After midnight is a good time to call, no waiting. Lo and behold, I had gotten dropped from the system. That got fixed while I was on the phone, but I wonder what would've happened had I not called and just shown up at the airport. Oh well, another problem averted.

20031003 [2220 MDT] Rapid City, SD. The Black Hills region is interesting. I started today by driving down Spearfish Canyon, taking some side roads, and on to Lead. Visited the Black Hills Mining Museum, which at $2.25 entrance is priced about right for half an hour or so. The Homestake open pit mine only runs their tours in July and August, and has closed down normal operations so I doubt it'd be very interesting anymore even when the tours run.
Then more back roads, and on to Crazy Horse Memorial. Think Mt. Rushmore (which is a few miles down the road, planned for tomorrow), only much larger (you could fit the four Mt.Rushmore faces on the head of the Crazy Horse project with room to spare). The Mt. Rushmore faces are 68 ft; although the artist for that originally envisaged twohundred-something ft busts. The Crazy Horse face alone is nearly 100 ft, and once finished the entire piece will be around 500 ft. It's a work in progress. They've been going at it for 50 years, and there's no expected end date. At the current rate of progress, probably another 50 years or so. Hats off to them though, it's a masterpiece of perseverance and precision blasting. Attached is a very interesting visitor center / museum / native american center. I spent a couple of hours there. Bonus for those who stay until after dark: the mountain is lit for an hour or so after dark, making for an impressive display. There are also (still vague) plans to eventually make it into a Native American university and information center, although that obviously depends on funding. There seems to be a strong commitment to remain privately funded, to the point of having turned down a federal subsidy (with all the BS that comes with that) for the monument of $10mln in the past. Good luck to them, and I look forward to visiting again in 10 or 20 years and seeing how they're doing. I think it deserves more publicity than it gets, certainly in Europe. Highly recommended.

Tomorrow Mt. Rushmore, maybe Wind Cave or Jewel Cave, more of the Black Hills. Sunday on to Badlands.

No email for 2 days, and now that I'm logged in again I'm going through about 430 messages. Most are spam, most of the rest mailing lists, so that's actually not quite as bad as it sounds.

20031002 [2000 MDT] Spearfish, SD. Local dialup access in these parts seems to be virtually nonexistent, so these (today and yesterday) entries won't go up until I get somewhere with access again. Probably tomorrow, Rapid City SD. More annoying is the inability to check my email. Yes, I'm a mail junkie.

Devil's Tower is impressive. Most of you will know it as the mountain from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". Rising nearly 900 ft from the surrounding area, with its strange shape, it dominates the landscape. I can see why it's a sacred place to most of the Indian tribes around these parts. There is definitely a special atmosphere still around. The same applies to the Black Hills, at least the small part (in WY) that I drove through today.
And yes, I can also understand why Spielberg thought it the perfect place to land an alien spaceship...
The weather's still great, mostly clear, sunny skies with highs in the mid-60s to low-70s, and lows around 35 to 40.

I realized that I probably finally have the American accent right. When I started coming over here I was frequently asked where I was from; people immediately picked up on it not being anywhere in the 50 states. This time around I haven't been asked once, and people who do need to know (like motel clerks entering my address into their system) seem to be surprised it's non-US.

"Got thirteen channels of shit on the TV to choose from" (Pink Floyd, 'Nobody Home'). Of course these days it's more like a hundred channels of shit. On the other hand, sometimes there's something good floating in the stream. Why doesn't Discovery Europe run shows like American Chopper (reality TV in a custom motorbike shop), Monster Garage and Monster House (car mods and house remodeling gone mad), World Poker Tournament (from "Travel Chanel", which is also part of Discovery), Date Patrol and What Not to Wear (both from TLC) instead of endless reruns of documentaries we've seen at least 15 times already? I mean, they are good documentaries, but at some point you've seen them often enough, while the above are all pretty hilarious.

20031002 [0030 MDT] Gilette, WY. I ended up spending the 29th fully in Yellowstone, and only drove to Jackson, WY, after dark. Jackson has some cheapish motels, otherwise it appeals mostly to those drawn to tourist traps. Yellowstone continues to amaze. On the third day there I particularly visited the Norris and Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone areas. Norris is the most active area, and parts of it were closed due to increased activity. The parts that were open were interesting. GCotY is just beautiful, especially around lower falls. It's definitely worth walking down to the lower falls overlook (600 ft vertical on a 3/8 mi switchback trail).
On 9/30 it was up again from Jackson to Grand Teton park. GT is completely different from Yellowstone. Where YS is mainly volcanic, GT is a faultline. Unfortunately you can't really drive up into the mountains, so unless you're hiking it will remain a "view from the distance" sightseeing trip, with one notable exception: signal fire mountain. A very rewarding drive up switchbacks to a reasonably high mountain with a great view of the valleys below. I ended the day in Riverton, WY. A small town that's useful to stay in, but otherwise has few redeaming features.
On a more general note, Wyoming is absolutely marvelous in fall colors at the moment. Mainly aspen and birch trees in deep yellow/golden hue, with a sprinkling of other trees in more reddish colors.
Today I took it easy, driving Riverton to Gilette. Riverton does have a somewhat interesting local history museum, so that's where I started the day. From there on it was mainly driving through Wind River reservation and Wind River Canyon. The latter is recommended.
Plans for the next couple of days: Tomorrow Gilette via Devils Tower to Black Hills NF, SD, and the village/area of Lead (mining town/compound). The day after that Mt. Rushmore, and some other things around there. Depending on how timing works out possibly another day in the Black Hills area, or directly onward to Badlands NP.

20030928 [2225 MDT] West Yellowstone, MT. Yellowstone, day 2. The weather's been great. Although I've been pushing it in terms of average expectancy, it's been 20+C, yesterday was completely clear without a cloud in sight, today a few scattered clouds if they're even worthy of that name. I managed to get myself a slight sunburn, and I picked up a bottle of sunscreen yesterday evening.
Despite being almost the end of the season it's still quite busy. I can only imagine (and dread) what the experience must be for people visiting in the high season. Thanks but no thanks as far as I'm concerned. 4 milion visitors per year...
The northern part of Yellowstone is rather different from the south. About half of Yellowstone is essentially the remains of a volcanic crater, and that's pretty much the south-west part. Around that is a still geothermally active but quieter, gentler landscape of hills, mountains, grassland, with the occasional vent. That's what I mostly saw today. Very pretty, but not as alien as the lower part.
A lot of the steam vents make a hissing noise. One can only imaging the kind of pressure needed to make a hissing or whistling noise at that kind of output volume.
I forgot to mention yesterday that with all the geothermal activity I was near I actually ended up smelling of sulphur myself. Now that might be good training for the hell we'll all end up in according to some preachers, but I decided to take a quick shower when I got back. When I took a shower this morning I still smelled slightly of sulphur.
Add to the list of wildlife I saw mountain sheep and an eagle. I can't help but wonder how aware those grazers are of the interest the tourists have in them. I can just imagine the young sheep going "Mommy, can we graze by the roadside and watch all the tourists stop?" While on the topic of wildlife, it's interesting (to me at least) that elk, although fairly large animals, seem to be making sounds not unlike the screeching of seagulls.

I got my CF reader at Radio Shack this morning, so I was able to copy the pictures from yesterday to my laptop and clear the card. I shot another 61 pics today. I'm not sure yet how I'm going to present them. The first step will be a good culling, and then probably subpages off a main picture page. And to think the first time I took a digicam with me I shot the whole vacation on a single card (albeit at much reduced resolution). Speaking of photography, does everyone fancy himself the next Ansel Adams? The number of people I saw lugging honking big telephoto/zoom lenses, multiple cameras, multiple tripods, etc, around, is absolutely staggering. Now I can see the use for two cameras, but 3 cameras, 5 telephoto lenses the size of small telescopes, a large bag of assorted hardware and 3 tripods may be pushing sensibility a bit for most amateur photographers.

Preliminary plans for the next few days (after checking weather.yahoo.com: Through Yellowstone, to the outlook over the area known as "Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone", and head down south to Grand Teton. Depending on what time I get there I might already see some stuff there, or leave that until the day after. Tomorrow I'm staying at the Motel6 in Jackson, WY, the night after that probably somewhere between Grand Teton and South Dakota, going to the Black Hills and Badland NP. The weather should still be good.
I realized that with all the travel I do around here I may well have seen more of the US than some Americans have.

Now for our next act, Bram's branching out to automotive reviews.

The rental car I got was a Mitsubishi Galant ES. It seems these fall under the definition of "intermediate". Having lived with it for about 2000 miles now, I'd say it's a well built piece of junk. Seeming contradiction? Not really. Let's start of positively: It is put together well enough, although I'd like to see how it holds up over 200,000 miles. It doesn't rattle, everything seems to work, it's fairly quiet, and it gets 30 mpg, which is a lot better than just about anything I've had so far, owned or rented.
On the other hand, handling is marginal. Perhaps the most serious problem is with the steering, which is severely unbalanced and unfeeling. The vehicle has a definite idea where it wants to go, depending on ruts/tracks in the road surface, camber, etc. This seems to be somewhat independent of keeping the wheel in the "straight ahead" position. When attempting to correct this it is a bit of an experimental science on how much force and deflection on the steering wheel will be required. Either nothing seems to happen until all of a sudden the car has a "oh, you don't want to go into that ditch?" reaction and changes course rather abruptly, or very little input is required to affect the desired change in direction. This makes it easy to over- or undercorrect and deviate from the desired line. Very little information regarding the road is transmitted to the steering wheel. In this it feels about the same as my old '70 Volvo 144 with worn suspension bushings and a leaking steering housing. A brand new car (6830 mi on the clock when I got it) should do better. It is also very easy to get the tires chirping; taking corners at speeds I'm used to (in a variety of vehicles, including a Renault Laguna and Chevy Monte Carlo, both of which are front wheel drive cars in about the same price range) will definitely create a howl and I can feel the car sliding.
Ergonomics are typically low-end Japanese: we don't need no stinkin' ergonomics. The seats are passable but somehow I can't seem to find a driving position that's really comfortable. Either I am set up properly to reach the steering wheel but I'm too close to the pedals, or I can stretch my legs and have to reach for the steering wheel. The wheel has up-down but no forward adjustability. After long drives other issues about the seats (like them being slightly on the narrow side) start becoming annoying, too. The window switches have an up-down action rather than the more common front-back action. In most cars you press the front of the switch to raise the window, the rear to lower it. Here you press the front of the switch to lower it, and pull the front of the switch to raise it; in practice that usually means pushing the front of the switch to raise it, noticing the window goes down, not up, and then pulling the switch. Again, not fatal but annoying.
It's got a 2.4 16V 4-cylinder engine. Sorry, but when renting an intermediate or better, I expect a V6 at least. Something that turns 2300 rpm at highway speeds rather than 3000 and doesn't have to work hard to get over a simple pass like I80 Donner Pass. I suppose I can't really blame Mitsu for this, as a V6 is available on this model, but that doesn't make this particular car any less annoying. The same applies to having steel wheels with hubcaps. It looks cheap, and how much more can a set of factory alloys be, especially if you're buying a couple thousand of the darn things? I suppose the seeming lack of ABS is also an equipment level issue, but again something I think should be standard on a car like this.
Now styling. What styling? They still don't seem to get the concept.The interior has a lot of cheap hard plastic, painted (or molded) silvery plastic. The shift lever doesn't have a built in light to indicate position, but a row of round red LEDs on the tunnel. The dashboard has an annoying and cheap looking "halo" effect emanating from the center of the gauges. Sorry guys, but this is the 21st century, not the 1970's. That goes for the plastic and the LEDs, for which we have moved beyond this kind of thing, and for the halo effect which seems to have come from the set of a '70s scifi movie. Again, we've moved beyond that. The door panels have cloth inserts all the way up to the top edge. I can't help but wonder how those will look in 3 to 5 years, as you can't just wipe them off or use cleaner on them like on vinyl panel tops like most cars have. And if you're going to fit cruise control (a very useful thing in my opinion), either use a proper stalk or better yet, put the buttons on the steering wheel itself. The little stalk hanging from the wheel looks like it came from the JC Whitney super saver sale rather than being factory equipment, and hanging off the 4 o'clock position of the wheel is annoying to people like me whose left hand is their preferred steering/cc/indicator hand, and when needing to adjust (ie. usually cancel) cruise while steering it leaves you groping for the handle. I suppose that might as well have gone under ergonomics as under styling as it violates both.
In short, it works, but it's totally uninspiring and somewhat annoying. Is it drivable? Sure, although I'm concerned about that steering. I think it's a safety issue that a car should have predictible steering and hold its course. Is it a technically OK car? Yes. If that's all you want from a car, you can still do better, but it isn't a total lemon. Would I buy one? Definitely not. Even in Japanse/far east kit in this price range there's much better available, and looking beyond that to European and US vehicles there's plenty of choice. I can't really see a good reason for anyone to buy one of these.

20030927 [2335 MDT] West Yellowstone, MT. Yellowstone is great. I can see how people can call it the most beautiful park of them all. I'd still call it a toss-up between Yellowstone, Yosemite and Death Valley, but those three are sufficiently different from each other that in the end it comes down to taste. The geothermals themselves are definitely awe inspiring, and the surrounding area - and the resultant landscape of those geothermals - very pretty. Originally I planned to do it in two days, but I've really only done West Entrance through Old Faithful area properly, so I might well take another day or so. Oh well, I'm in no particular hurry. Old Faithful itself is a bit disappointing, although that may well be due to the theme-park atmosphere around it. Pavement, benches, signs, the lot. There's more interesting, and more natural looking, stuff nearby, so take the time to walk around.
Yellowstone's also pretty heavy on large wildlife. I've seen several herd of buffalo, and more elk in the first hour I spent in the park than in all trips to Sweden combined.
I obviously took lots of pictures, and realized I left my CFcard reader at home (fortunately a very cheap thing), so I'll have to get another one tomorrow. There's a Radio Shack across the street, so I hope they or one of the photo shops have got one.

20030926 [2305 MDT] West Yellowstone, MT. Having fun. The past week was stuff that's interesting and/or relaxing to me, probably less interesting to y'all, so I'm summarizing that. The 19th I spent around LA, and went to see friends in the evening. It's good to finally have met L, C and R in real life. I think I've known L on usenet for 5 or more years. Saturday we all took it easy, and I departed for Sacramento early afternoon. Before leaving I checked my mail, and found and email from my parents that the paperwork for my new job had come in, so I'm definitely starting on November 1st. Had dinner Saturday evening with D and B. Sunday into the Nevada desert with D. Lots of fun, looking for ghost town ruins. I think we may have broken his truck in new and interesting ways, it had some new rattles on the way back and on Monday the clutch didn't work all that well anymore. Oh well, according to D it had been on it's way out anyway. Stayed around Sacramento on Monday and gave D's new (to him...) campervan a thorough going over (or under, that was the part with most issues he wanted a second opinion on). I'm not going into it much further here, as he's still working on trying to resolve these issues with the seller. Let's just say that having a northern European perspective on rust and chassis cracks makes things seem less bad than the Californian "oh my God, a rust spot, we're not touching that!" mindset. Also told him a bit about welding. While doing so (at Harbor Freight so I'd have a good selection of equipment available to point things out) I picked up an automatic welding helmet on sale. Half the price or less than they're in the Netherlands. Good day, taking it easy with the record for this time of year 103F heat.
Drove up to SLC on Tuesday, stayed with M and J for a couple of days. I must say I was pretty surprised that their kids still remembered me. It's been almost 2 years since I was there last. A, their 5 year old (if I'm not mistaken) daughter, even wanted to say hi to me on the phone when I called that I was about 2 hours out.
In SLC I was basically taking it easy, catching up on some things I'd brought over to work on. Last time I was over I explained home networking and computer systems to M. That paid of very nicely; he is happy with the kit he bought, and that also meant DSL and WiFi (wireless networking to those of you not up to date on IT acronyms) for me to use around his house. Of course it also meant I got drafted into reinstalling his laptop last night. Drove up to West Yellowstone, MT, today, and I'm staying at one of the three Best Westerns in this little town. W.Y. is pretty much a tourist trap by any other name, but it's close to Yellowstone park.

20030918 [1710 EDT] Of course the weather's getting pretty lousy here in Philly as well by now.

[1635 EDT] Philadelphia airport is much more modern than IAD or LAX, and more interesting. More shops, food sellers, etc, to browse while waiting. It's also a lot less stuffy, probably due to having hard flooring rather than carpeting, and very well organized. Partly due to it seeming very quiet I cleared immigration (one minute thirty) and customs (25 seconds) in record time. The flight in was OK, just a bit of a rollercoaster ride on final approach. Didn't see much due to cloud cover.

Downside to being on USair rather than my original United ticket: USair domestic flights have no meal service. Feel free to pay $10 for what's still airline food. Thanks but no thanks, so I'm now eating a veggie burger and union rings in the foodcourt off B concourse. I'll have to see if I can get reimbursed for that.

[1840 MET] Airborne, somewhere over Canada or the Northeastern US by now. My original flight UA947 got cancelled due to the hurricane over NC. I called UA and was told I was rescheduled for tomorrow, no alternatives possible. Too bad, so I make a few changes and send mail to a few people to let them know of my changed itinery. 35 Minutes later I'm called by the travel agent that I'm rebooked on USAir via Philadelphia. Woops, change some things back, another couple of quick emails and hurry out the door.
The line at the airport was long, but eventually I got my ticket endorsed, checked in on US43 and helped through Dutch exit immigration by a USair employee. It's a crappy old 767, with sagging seats, central projection screen rather than individual seatback displays, and less seat pitch and width, but it left on time (not bad considering the chaos and late checkins from UA) and I'm on the way, so that's fine with me. At least the load factor seems to be only around 80% or so, so it was no problem at all to move to an isle seat with no-one in the seat next to me. Meal prefs weren't transferred, but the pasta's meatless, and makes an OK change from the UA veggie food, which approaches inedible more and more each time I fly. Now to see if US11 Philadelphia to LAX is going to be on time. I should be in LA around 2100, but with the chaos a major weather pattern causes to flight routing I'll be happy with everything before midnight.

Update since the last entry. Not all that much happening, except a lot of work to get ready for the Utrecht show, then the show itself, a day of work to get everything back, and 2 days to get ready for a 6 week trip. The show itself was pretty much a wash. Sure, we sold some stuff, but no cars, and considering the amount of work, we think we could've better spent our time different. Not sure if we'll do the show next year. There are too many people browsing, not enough people buying. That was a complaint we heard from just about everyone at the show. Oh well.

20030909 [0310] Another long catch-up entry. Yeah, I should probably be sleeping. That's probably going to be the hardest part of going back to work - hopefully in November -: dragging my sorry ass out of bed in the morning. And yes, the above comment does imply that paperwork for that job seems to be progressing well.

I recently bought a new toy: a used beamer. No, not the car (although the 700 series is pretty nice), the video projector. Hitachi CP-X935, 400 euros from a reputable vendor, the biggest presentation equipment vendor in the Netherlands. Ex-rental, in good condition, cleaned and checked, etc.
I was also trying to buy a cheapo DVD player, but that turns out to be a bit of a problem. I've got a Proline 1040 that I got real cheap in some sale. A fine piece of equipment, but apart from a rather clumsy hack that will make it play any region DVD without any control over it (no menu's, RC, etc) it is not region-free nor can it apparently be made so. However, it does at least display region1 discs correctly. So I got me another player, a Thompson. Which was easy to make region-free, but outputs R1 discs as PAL-60, which my oldish TV doesn't support. So that gets returned, and while at the shop I write down the type numbers of all other sub-E120 players there. No luck. I'm open to recommendations on cheapo players that can both be made region-free as a handset hack and will correctly display R1 discs on a PAL-50 television.

The big Dutch Volvo Show is next week, and over the past weeks we've been working hard to get some cars ready in time for the show. Between A and me we've got way too many cars, so we really want to move some metal out of the barn.
The white 745 turbo is ready. Confession time: I still feel rather embarassed about a stupid mistake. I had it all back together, and was test running it in the barn, and warming it up so I could flush the oil-contaminated coolant system. This had worked correctly for a couple of cycles, and I had been doing some minor adjustments and changing a belt that turned out to be way past expired. Restarted, and after a couple of seconds it runs rough and dies. No restart. I'm trying to keep this journal PG-rated, so I'll save you the exact expressions used. Start checking everything: plugs, AMM, CPS, CTS, wiring, coil, HT wires, cap, rotor, compression, timing, the works. All this took quite a bit of time, and early on in the process A had arrived to help. He was going to come over anyway, but we'd been hoping to put the finishing touches on that car rather than troubleshoot it. After a couple of hours (and you, probably being less mechanically inclined and therefor less likely to run every technical doom scenario through your head, have already spotted the problem, right?), A suddenly has an epiphany. I concur, and upon turning the ignition key to position 2 and spotting the essential nature of this problem, destroy any chance of even an NC-13 rating. Yes, you're right: The bloody thing had been expertly drained of all but a hint of fuel by the previous owner's mechanic.
Oh well, it's finished, we've driven it, it runs well, but we've got the 16-valves, so it has to go. 2350 Euros negotiable. At least the 245SE was relatively easy. A good day of work to check it over, catch up on some maintenance items, and it was good to go. And passed inspection first time around.
Then it was time for the blue 745. Or so we thought. We towed it to the barn, I started doing the maintenance items while A was going to pick up the rebuilt turbo the next day. Which he brought over on a Friday night (with inspection scheduled for next Wednesday). At which point we realized, somewhat belatedly, that the exhaust manifold gasket for a B204/B234 is totally and utterly incompatible with same for a B230 - which I did have in stock, unlike the B234 item. The latter item proved unobtainable in short order, so on Saturday we decided to tow the blue 745 back to the other barn and work the black 745 instead. Brake disks, ball joints, maintenance, rear crank seal (which required pulling the transmission, and cleaning same as the leaking crank seal had liberally "rustproofed" the underside of the car), and some other stuff, and by Monday night (Tuesday morning?) 0300 we had it more or less finished.
Time to pick up the 245SE from the barn and send A on his way with that for inspection around 1000 - or rather me following him. Just past Utrecht it quit. Completely. Rolled out to the hard shoulder, and A called the auto club. 2 units arived around 0500, and around 0600 we were moving again. Go to an intermediate point to swap cars, I go home and get some sleep, A gets to take the SE for inspection.
Some last minute items on the black 745 and it's ready for me to take it to inspection on Wednesday. Of course by the time inspection finished (yes, it too passed first time) the tax desk had closed for the day.
Thursday: another day, another temporary license plate, another trip to Amsterdam. Such a horrible fate: having to drive a 200HP full option luxury car. Arrive 1315, by 1430 I finally got to the head of the queue. Sure, paying over a grand of tax is a privilege, you should have to work for it. I felt sorry for some of the people who had also been waiting for over an hour: That tax desk closes 1530, and they truly don't give a shit. Come back tomorrow, or whenever. Or don't. It's all the same to them. You've been waiting for three hours? That's your problem, not theirs. Total and utter assholes, and not of the good kind.
On the other hand the RDW (testing/DMV agency) was quick beyond my wildest dreams. On Friday I received the test certificate, on Saturday the registration was in my mailbox. So it's now completely road-legal in the Netherlands.
Of course we've still got the blue one, and we really want to reclaim some cash and space in the barn, so the black 745 is now for sale. 6950 Euros negotiable, on Dutch plates, all duties paid and with a year's test on it.
On a humorous side note, when the auto club crews came down at some point they though they'd found the problem (a broken wire in the CPS connector). They were absolutely sure. "How sure?" I asked. "Completely sure" one of them replied. "Sure enough to bet your van on it?" I asked. "Yes" came back the answer. Hmm, a VW T4 van fully stocked with tools and supplies. They asked for me to put up a case of beer. It later turned out there was another problem as well (a bad vampire tap in the immobilizer), but they got it running. Which was our main concern, so I gladly dropped off a case of beer at their station when I came back from the testing station on Wednesday. Hey, bets are debts of honor. Had a nice chat with the crews that were there (day shift).

Enough of this rambling about cars for now. That's it I promise, at least for this entry. Let's go on with things of a more general interest, namely travel.
I booked my tickets, goin' back to the USA.
18-SEP UA947 AMS (Amsterdam) to LAX (Los Angeles) via IAD (Washington Dulles). Visit friends in LA and Salt Lake City, then on to the parks in Wyoming and surrounding states: Yellowstone (of course), Grand Teton, Glacier, Badlands, Craters, Black Mountains, depending a bit on weather conditions. Going up there has been on my wishlist for years, always thwarted either by time constraints or weather conditions.
Then down to Sacramento, hopefully visit a friend there, and on 12-OCT UA6421 SMF (Sacramento int'l) to SFO (San Francisco), UA41 SFO to KOA (Kona, Hawaii). Spend time on the Big Island, see the Volcanoes, then do a bit of island hopping, hopefully back to Big Island to meet a friend there, and a couple of days on Maui.
All good things must eventually come to an end, in this case 27-OCT UA38 OGG (Kahului) to LAX (arrive 28-OCT), UA946 LAX to AMS via IAD.
Yes, I'll be keeping my diary more up-to-date, although in this case I'll be out of internet access more often than on previous trips, so don't expect almost daily updates like last time.

News roundup:
-Chief Justice (former?) Moore of Alabama is still trying to make a fool of himself. Ignoring court orders from District Court, his fellow justices, etc. Of course by now he has found himself suspended by the ethics committee. I've got a feeling that if someone were to ignore his orders when he was still on the bench the miscreant would have found himself gettin' real cozy with Bubba down in the courthouse holding cells, locked up for contempt of court.
-Spam and Viruses. Sobig and co. have been making the rounds lately, to the point that even my internet provider (xs4all) has started filtering for all incoming mail. Xs4all has a history as a hacker and digital libertarian organization, so blanket filtering is something they've always opposed. Still, it really cut down on the amount of junk in my mailbox, and at least they're doing filtering the right way, by content rather than using netblock blacklists. Interestingly enough, minus the sobig mails the total amount of spam seems to have decreased, leading me to wonder if perhaps the spammers have also been hit by viruses and put out of action, at least for now. That would be at least one good, if unintended, side effect.
-More worrying were the stories that ran on CNN, theregister.com and Sacbee.com that a nuclear installation control room and a signalling room for CSX (railroad company) had also been hit. C'mon people, if you have to use windows boxes for control applications at all (and in my opinion there is NO good reason to do so), at least firewall and virus-protect them to Hell and back. Better yet, don't put them on a publically accessible network, and don't share email/web and control functions on the same hardware. If you need to give those employees mail/web, put an extra system on their desk. Cheapo boxes capable of running office applications are less than a grand these days. Not worth risking your operational systems for.
-On a lighter note, this employee wont' be asking for mail any time soon.
This, on the other hand, made me wonder if I shouldn't pursue a career in bodywork and paint instead of IT.
-Human ingenuity seems to be limitless when it comes to doing things people shouldn't be doing, courtesy of the TSA. Your tax dollars at work.
-And we've got two, yes that's right TWO, contenders for moron of the week. First the Federal Court of Appeals in California, for making normal computer use a crime in an extremely ill-considered decision.
-As our next contender we have this man who steals a GPS home-confinement tracking device.

And of course the new Beloit College's Mindset List for the Class of 2007 has been released. Not sure yet if it makes me feel old or young; you decide. Here's the annotated list; my comments in italics. Had I gone to uni or college I'd probably have been class of '97 or '98 I think. Check and Negatory are obvious, but being Dutch and having grown up in the Netherlands - although fortunately in an internationally oriented family - some stuff just didn't register or was never relevant, hence marked "cultural". In other words, no idea how I'd have responded to that had I grown up in the US, in NL it was just plain under the radar. I guess I should Google for the "class of '97' list if that's somewhere on the 'net.
1. Ricky Nelson, Richard Burton, Samantha Smith, Laura Ashley, Orson Welles, Karen Ann Quinlan, Benigno Aquino, and the U.S. Football League have always been dead.
Check
2. They are not familiar with the source of that "giant sucking sound."
Check
3. Iraq has always been a problem.
Define problem. They've been at war with _someone_ for as long as I can remember. First Iran (and being raised pretty much pacifist, even if I no longer fully support that, that made them part of a problem), then Kuwait, shortly thereafter followed by Gulf War 1 (Desert Storm), Desert Shield, something or other and whatever the current operation is called.
4. "Ctrl+Alt+Del" is as basic as "ABC."
Check. First computer around age 11, but interested in them before that. Even if they were C64's and the like back then, the "three fingered salute" has become as ingrained as the Dutch and English languages in my mind.
5. Paul Newman has always made salad dressing.
Negatory. I don't think we get/got the salad dressing this side of the Atlantic, so to me he's always been an actor.
6. Pete Rose has always been a gambler.
Negatory. Cultural, ie. Who's he?
7. Bert and Ernie are old enough to be their parents.
Check, sort of. Sesame Street certainly wasn't very recent when I grew up. Not sure about parents, certainly much older siblings.
8. An automatic is a weapon, not a transmission.
Half-check and cultural. Firearms aren't as ingrained in Dutch culture, but I think I've always had both references.
9. Russian leaders have always looked like leaders everyplace else.
Half-check. I don't really remember any Russian leaders pre-Gorbachev, and he's never been an icon of evil, but I vividly remember the fall of the Berlin wall.
10. The snail darter has never been endangered.
Cultural. Don't even know what one is.
11. There has always been a screening test for AIDS.
Y'know, I really don't know that. I do remember reading as a fairly young child (probably in a newspaper or science magazine) about this mysterious disease killing mainly homosexual men (the word gay has never really made it into the Dutch language, so that was the terminology used) in the US, but I'd be hard pressed to tell if the tests had already been developed (ie. reading about it in old issues and/or as something existing) or if it just came out around that time.
12. Gas has always been unleaded.
Cultural. That change came much later here. Leaded gas has been available even after I got my driver license
13. They never heard Howard Cosell call a game on ABC.
Cultural. Who's he?
14. The United States has always had a poet laureate.
Cultural. Not being particularly interested in that stuff I certainly wouldn't know about another country's poet laureate when I was a child.
15. Garrison Keillor has always been live on public radio and Lawrence Welk has always been dead on public television.
16. Their families drove SUVs without "being fuelish."
17. There has always been some association between fried eggs and your brain.
18. They would never leave their calling card on someone's desk.
Cultural, and that applies to all 4 above.
19. They have never been able to find the "return" key.
Negatory. I definitely do remember learning to type on my mother's old blue typewriter, and quickly figuring out that the electric typewriter was a lot less work.
20. Computers have always fit in their backpacks.
Negatory. I remember computers being several heavy equipment racks, then the home/office computers which, I suppose, would've fit in a backpack although not in a functioning manner, the first "luggables" (Osbourne, IBM, Olivetti M21), the introduction of the Compaqs with their orange plasma screens taking weight down to a mere 15 to 20 lbs or so and the size of a sewing machine rather than a large suitcase.
21. Datsuns have never been made.
Negatory. By the time I started getting interested in cars Nissan had just started phasing out the Datsun name, but there were certainly plenty of them still around. My mother used to have an old Datsun 100A coupe for a couple of years.
22. They have never gotten excited over a telegram, a long-distance call or a fax.
Check
23. The Osmonds are just talk-show hosts.
24. Undergraduate college athletes have always been a part of the NBA and NFL drafts.
25. They have always "grazed" for food.
Cultural, 3 above.
26. Three-point shots from "downtown" have always been a part of basketball.
Personal. I don't care about spectator sports, so I have/had no idea that they are now, or for that matter what they are.
27. Test-tube babies are now having their own babies.
Vaguely remembering the public outcry over the first ones, and various religious organizations proclaiming it as the beginning of the end of the world, as they have done for many other events since. So far the world seems to have failed to start to end.
28. Stores have always had scanners at the checkout.
29. The Army has always driven Humvees.
Negatory, 2 above. I remember the introduction (and being somewhat excited about these cool new tech toys) of both.
30. Adam and PC Junior computers had vanished from the market before this generation went online.
Check - then again they'd gone out before almost anyone except the lucky few went online.
31. The Statue of Liberty has always had a gleaming torch.
Check
32. They have always had a PIN number.
Negatory. I remember their introduction, and resisting use for a couple of years due to perceived unsafeness. I still think they're a suboptimal solution, but hey, they're convenient so let's just accept the risk.
33. Banana Republic has always been a store, not a puppet government in Latin America.
Negatory, although that is partly cultural. We never got that chain here I think, or if we did it must've been relatively recent.
34. Car detailing has always been available.
As something for the rich and car dealers, check. As a consumer service, it still isn't widely available, so let's write that off as check/cultural.
35. Directory assistance has never been free.
Negatory
36. The Jaycees have always welcomed women as members.
37. There has always been Lean Cuisine.
Cultural, 2 above
38. They have always been able to fly Virgin Atlantic.
Negatory. I clearly remember Richard Branson starting that up, and hoping he'd succeed.
39. There have never been dress codes in most restaurants.
Check
40. Doctors have always had to deal with "reasonable and customary fees," and patients have always had controls placed on the number of days they could stay in a hospital.
Cultural on the first one, Negatory on the second
41. They have always been able to make photocopies at home.
Negatory
42. Michael Eisner has always been in charge of Disney.
Check, although I developed an interest in the machinations of the entertainment industry relatively late, so my awareness of this doesn't stretch back as far as some people's.
43. They have always been able to make phone calls from planes.
Very expensive and not in all planes, but I think the concept's always been there, so check.
44. Yuppies are almost as old as hippies.
Negatory, definitely.
45. Rupert Murdoch has always been an American citizen.
Negatory
46. Strawberry Fields has always been in New York.
Cultural
47. Rock 'n' roll has always been a force for social good.
Cultural
48. Killer bees have always been swarming in the United States.
Check. Remember reading about that stuff as a kid.
49. They have never seen a first lady in a fur coat.
Not sure. Didn't Nancy Reagan sometimes appear in one?
50. Don Imus has always been offending someone in his national audience.
Cultural
In all fairness it should be understood that students entering college this fall do have a few items on their own lists that will separate them from many of their mentors:
1. For many of them today, it's all about the "bling-bling."
Cultural
2. They know who the "heroes in a half shell" are."
Wasn't that Ninja Turtles or something like that? Never liked the show, but it was a big thing when I went to school.
3. Peeps are not a candy, they are your friends.
Cultural
4. They have been "dissing" and "burning" things all their lives.
Cultural
5. They can expect to get a ticket for "ricing out their wheels."
Cultural
6. They knew how to pop a Popple and trade a Pog.
Cultural
7. They can still sing the rap chorus to the "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" and the theme song from "Duck Tales."
Can't sing worth a damn, but I do remember them.
© 2002 Beloit College, Beloit, Wis.