Kristy's Blog

HOW TO DRIVE IN PHOENIX:

1. You must first learn to pronounce the city name, it is: FEE-NICKS’. There are other names to learn such as Awatukee (Ah-wa-Too-Kee) but that will be included in the advanced course.

2. The morning rush hour is from 5:00 am to noon. The evening rush hour is from noon to 7:00 pm. Friday’s rush hour starts on Thursday morning.

3. The minimum acceptable speed on most freeways is 85 mph. On Loop 101, your speed is expected to at least match the highway number. Anything less is considered ‘Wussy’.

4. Forget the traffic rules you learned elsewhere. Phoenix has its own version of traffic rules. For example, cars/trucks with the loudest muffler go first at a four-way stop; the trucks with the biggest tires go second. However, East Valley, SUV-driving, cell phone-talking moms ALWAYS have the right of way.

5. If you actually stop at a yellow light, you will be rear ended, cussed out, and possibly shot.

6. Never honk at anyone. Ever. Seriously. It’s another offense that can get you shot.

7. Road construction is permanent and continuous in Phoenix. Detour barrels are moved around for your entertainment pleasure during the middle of the night to make the next day’s driving a bit more exciting.

8. Watch carefully for road hazards such as drunks, skunks, dogs, barrels, cones, cows, horses, cats, mattresses, shredded tires, rabbits, crows, vultures, javelinas, roadrunners, and the coyotes feeding on any of these items.

9. Maricopa Freeway, Papago Freeway and the ‘I-10′ are the same road. SR202 is the same road as The Red Mountain FWY. Dunlap and Olive are the same
street too. Jefferson becomes Washington, but they are not the same street. SR 101 is also the Pima FWY except west of I-17, which is also The Black Canyon FWY, and The Veterans Memorial HWY. Lastly, Thunderbird Rd. becomes Cactus Rd. but, Cactus Rd. doesn’t become Thunderbird Rd. because it dead ends at a mountain.

10. If someone actually has their turn signal on, wave them to the shoulder immediately to let them know it has been ‘accidentally activated.

11. If you are in the left lane and only driving 70 in a 55-65 mph zone, you are considered a road hazard and will be ‘flipped off’ accordingly. If you return the flip, you’ll be shot.

12. For summer driving, it is advisable to wear potholders on your hands. (AMEN!)

If you want to see how badly flights get backed up…..FlightStats.com.

Benny’s page.

About time, too.

Massive Arctic ice shelf breaks away

OTTAWA (Reuters) – A huge 19 square mile (55 square km) ice shelf in Canada’s northern Arctic broke away last month and the remaining shelves have shrunk at a “massive and disturbing” rate, the latest sign of accelerating climate change in the remote region, scientists said on Tuesday.

They said the Markham Ice Shelf, one of just five remaining ice shelves in the Canadian Arctic, split away from Ellesmere Island in early August. They also said two large chunks totaling 47 square miles had broken off the nearby Serson Ice Shelf, reducing it in size by 60 percent.

Pretty scary!

This item is just too good to pass up…

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL148259220080901

LUDZIDZINI ROYAL VILLAGE, Swaziland (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of bare-breasted virgins competed for Swaziland King Mswati III’s eye on Monday in a traditional Reed Dance.

Walking through the dense crowds in a leopard skin loin cloth, Sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch was expected to choose his 14th wife.

So the question is…do they have to be both virgins and bare-breasted? Or is one or the other enough.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Just returned yesterday from the best concert experience of my life. I am now a rabid Radiohead fan! Before this, I’ve only heard one album of Radiohead’s Kid A, who the Phoenix NewTimes reviewed as, “either a piece of crap or the best album I ever heard – after two months I can’t decide” (the review made me purchase it immediately).

I added all of the pictures from the concert here. I watched a couple of people filming the concert with their Flip Video Recorders, and sure enough, here is one of them on YouTube:

I’m sure I will be boring people silly for a couple of weeks talking about this concert! I’ve never seen such a stage set, lighted only with LEDs from this environmentally-minded group, and long fluorescent tubes hung to frame the group on stage. I read a review complaining that the LED lighting was too dim, but I was up in the pit (my eternal thanks to Ed for taking me and getting such great seats!) and it seemed fine to me. The background was a 5-part split screen of each member of the group, which was so innovative, I’m sure it could be released on its own as a best-selling video.

The members of the band exuded intelligence, and they incorporated subtle political messages in the concert in unique ways. For instance: t-shirts sold were made of 50% recycled plastic bottles “pulled from landfills” and 50% organic cotton fiber. I bought one to wear (it was cooler weather-wise than I expected), and it was toasty. They also had Tibetan flags hung inconspicuously on the stage, as well as a Chilean flag.

So now the music – was it worth the 12 hour round trip drive? Definitely! Radiohead is truly talented, and gifted, unassuming and they play the kind of music I respond to, what I call the “sweet yearning”. Also, I think the lyrics are not overly important (though I’m sure some would argue that), which works out for me, since I am usually not paying much attention to the words of songs. The live music sounded even better than the released albums (and that’s saying something for me). Attention to detail was paid to every rendition of a song, and the band’s delivery seemed fresh and joyful, though the songs themselves are full of sadness and sometimes anger.

RADIOHEAD’S SAN DIEGO SET LIST, AUG. 27, 2008
15 Step
Airbag
There There
All I Need
Nude
Talk Show Host
Where I End and You Begin
Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
The Gloaming
Faust Arp
How to Disappear Completely
Reckoner
Optimistic
Jigsaw
Pyramid Song
Climbing Up The Walls
Bodysnatchers

FIRST ENCORES
House of Cards
You and Whose Army?
Just
Paranoid Android
Street Spirit (Fade Out)

SECOND ENCORES
Videotape
Lucky
Everything In Its Right Place

I’m supposed to be writing a blog post on the Radiohead concert, but someone sent this to me last night and I loved it, so Radiohead will have to wait for the moment.

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

e.e. cummings

Shah Agassi, one of the few who make the tech boom go, and was slated to become CEO of SAP, has his own plan for getting rid of every one of those gas-burning cars. His plan in a nutshell, have consumers buy the power to charge batteries directly from the power grid, and not own the batteries. Just have stations available with new batteries when the old ones run low – it would take the same amount of time to fill up your gas tank.

http://www.wired.com/cars/futuretransport/magazine/16-09/ff_agassi

Electric Avenues

AutoOS, the Better Place operating system, would transform the transportation grid. Here’s how.

1. A special key fob linked to the car indicates the status of the battery. If the logo is throbbing blue, the car is fully charged.
2. The driver unplugs and heads out. The software analyzes the first few minutes of driving and guesses the destination based on past history: “Work?” it asks. The driver speaks a response and the system determines how much energy is needed for the day.
3. During the commute, the location-aware system finds and displays three open parking spaces near the office that are equipped with Better Place charging spots.
4. An automatic arm extends to plug into the car. The spot then communicates with the control center, which anticipates the driver’s energy needs so as to allocate power economically. It might, say, limit consumption during expensive peak hours. The driver gets a text: “80 percent charged.”
5. An unexpected meeting comes up. The driver enters a new route, and AutOS determines there is insufficient charge to get there. The driver orders a battery swap.
6. AutOS finds the most convenient battery-exchange location and books a bay. The old battery gets lowered onto a hydraulic plate, and the car moves forward on a car-wash-style track. In five minutes, a fully charged battery is in place.

5. You are the recipient of mass panic when anything goes wrong with the system
When error messages pop up and system outages occur, employees and managers quickly start pointing fingers at IT and the pressure is intense to get things fixed quickly to keep users from losing productivity. That’s part of the job and you have to always be prepared for it. In fact, some IT pros even get an adrenaline rush from this type of high-pressure stakes.

4. People assume you’re an expert in everything about computers or networks
Just because you know how to program doesn’t mean you know how to fix Windows, install a network, or recover lost data for people. Many IT pros can’t help but get a little frustrated by this, or even feeling a little inadequate. Worse, because you’re a techie, a lot of your co-workers will come to you for advice on buying PCs, digital cameras, and TVs. Some will even ask you to fix their PC for free or help troubleshoot a problem with their cable modem.

3. It’s extremely difficult to keep up with all of the new trends in technology
I am always learning new things about Programming (word in capitals as I think it deserves) and the systems, even in the narrow world of web development. Continuing education? Just working with new clients typically requires massive amounts of research to find something which fits their system.

2. The hours are long and irregular
Most IT workers are always on call, or are at least part of an on-call rotation, in case critical systems go down during off-hours. In addition, many IT pros have tasks that they need to do when there aren’t as many users on the system. That means coming in early to run backup routines or staying late to update an application or patch a server after most of the users have logged off at the end of the day.

1. The job market is getting competitive
One word: Outsourcing.

During the late 1990s, in order to get a job, you only had to know how to spell the word “programming” in order to make big bucks. Then the dot com implosion and the wrap up of the Y2K fixes meant that a lot of tech jobs disappeared. Now, India, Russian and Indonesia all have cheap, talented labor at a fraction of the cost of US workers, and that spells trouble for us.