Posted by andrew at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The season at Heavenly is over but there are a handful of places still open for quality spring skiing. I'm heading up early tomorrow morning for one, maybe two days of sliding in the sun. When I get back I promise to write about the trip, Whistler and wrap up the whole ski season, which, like so many things in my life, I've really badly neglected. Have a good weekend.

Posted by andrew at 10:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

... Have been updated, finally after so many years. Even remade the montage that disappeared when I moved from my previous vile host to someone respectful. Enjoy.

Posted by andrew at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I don't think I've ever been the victim of copyright infringement, as far as I know., until today. At least I found out about it today. I was searching around on Technorati and I found a site that was supposedly linking to me. Except all that he was doing was stealing a photograph off this site and putting it on his own without any attribtution. He did link the photo on his site to the actual photo, but all that did was allow me to find him. Amazing.

I'm not going to make any money off this site or the pictures I post here, however my site and all the contents are protected under a Creative Commons License. It's one of the least restrictive copyright options and all it requires is basic attribution. In my world, we call that courtesy.

People ask me to use photos of mine for various things here and there and I always say yes and I would have said yes to this dude, if he asked. But he didn't even bother to do that. Just went ahead and snatched it. It's kinda messed up. Not only that, he didn't even bother to copy the photo and host it on his own server, which I how I caught him. I doubt he gets much traffic, but I don't need to be supporting his bandwidth. That's just totally uncool.

So, please, if you want to use any of my photos or anything else, please 1) ask and 2) credit. It's the right thing to do.

Posted by andrew at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This is really unbelievable. It heard about it on the radio on the way home. What does this mean? What's the end result? Don't know. But one thing's for sure is that this is going to raise the impeachment debate to the national level. Pretty stunning development.

The Illinois General Assembly is about to rock the nation. Members of state legislatures are normally not considered as having the ability to decide issues with a massive impact to the nation as a whole. Representative Karen A. Yarbrough of Illinois' 7th District is about to shatter that perception forever. Representative Yarbrough stumbled on a little known and never utlitized rule of the US House of Representatives, Section 603 of Jefferson's Manual of the Rules of the United States House of Representatives, which allows federal impeachment proceedings to be initiated by joint resolution of a state legislature. From there, Illinois House Joint Resolution 125 (hereafter to be referred to as HJR0125) was born.

Detailing five specific charges against President Bush including one that is specified to be a felony, the complete text of HJR0125 is copied below at the end of this article. One of the interesting points is that one of the items, the one specified as a felony, that the NSA was directed by the President to spy on American citizens without warrant, is not in dispute. That fact should prove an interesting dilemma for a Republican controlled US House that clearly is not only loathe to initiate impeachment proceedings, but does not even want to thoroughly investigate any of the five items brought up by the Illinois Assembly as high crimes and/or misdemeanors. Should HJR0125 be passed by the Illinois General Assembly, the US House will be forced by House Rules to take up the issue of impeachment as a privileged bill, meaning it will take precedence over other House business.

The Illinois General Assembly joins a growing chorus of voices calling for censure or impeachment of President Bush including Democratic state committees in Vermont, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Nevada and North Carolina as well as the residents themselves of seven towns in Vermont, seventy Vermont state legislators and Congressman John Conyers. The call for impeachment is starting to grow well beyond what could be considered a fringe movement. An ABC News/Washington Post Poll Conducted April 6-9 showed that 33% of Americans currently support Impeaching President Bush, coincidentally, only a similar amount supported impeaching Nixon at the start of the Watergate investigation. If and when Illinois HJR0125 hits the capitol and the individual charges are publicly investigated, that number is likely to grow rapidly. Combined with the very real likelihood that Rove is about to be indicted in the LeakGate investigation, and Bush is in real trouble beyond his plummeting poll numbers. His cronies in the Republican dominated congress will probably save him from the embarassment of an impeachment conviction, for now, but his Presidency will be all but finished.

Posted by andrew at 12:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Joyce Vincent had been dead for more than two years when her body was eventually discovered in January this year. She was surrounded by unopened Christmas presents. The television was still on and so was the heating.

Housing officers came to her north London bedsit only to repossess it because the rent was thousands of pounds in arrears. A locksmith drilled the door open. A giant pile of unopened post, the earliest dated November 2003, lay on the doormat.

Vincent lay on the sitting room floor. Her body was so badly decomposed - her remains were "largely skeletal", the pathologist said - that she had to be identified by dental records. Detectives told the inquest last week that, inasmuch as it was possible to tell, there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the death. The coroner recorded an open verdict. Vincent was 40 years old.

This is from a story in the The Times of London that I found on my friend Ursula's site. The amazing thing about this story is that this woman was 40 years old. She was in the prime of her life. She lived in an apartment building with 200 units. She had a family. She worked for a advertising firm. She must have had some friends. And yet there she rotted in her apartment for 2 years before her decomposed corpse was discovered. It's just startling.

Now, if I died alone in my apartment, I would hope that the situation would be a little different. But it certainly gets you thinking. My landlord wouldn't wait even a month if I didn't pay the rent, but she lives next door and I see her almost every day. My cats, what would they do? I have no idea. They'd probably sound the general alarm and start caterwauling after a few days of not being fed and shitting all over the place when the litter box was full. Would they lick me? Would they eat me? I don't know. They'd probably eat me. My family would start to wonder after not hearing from me and I suspect that the handful of the readers of this blog would be curious about the sudden lack of posts and if went on for more than a few weeks, they'd start to inquire. I live around the corner from work and my boss would probably try to track me down since I'm an integral part of the team and I don't have that much PTO after my trip to Canada.

So I might last three weeks at the most before my rotting hulk saw the light of day. And I would hope that the bulk of the people in the world be found much quicker. But I think in an increasingly urban world, where more and more people live dissassociated lives, Ms. Vincent's experience, if a dead person can experience anything, might be more frequent, sad to say.

Posted by andrew at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Sorry I haven't written much in the last week. I was skiing in Whistler. And while we did have access to the Internet in the condo, I didn't much feel like writing after flinging my body around the hill. There's lots to write about and many pictures to share. Hopfefully I'll get something more comprehensive by the end of the day.

Posted by andrew at 07:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today is that day that my company has been officially swallowed up by a huge Swiss pharmacuetcal company. Lots of changes are afoot. Many people at the corporate level will be made "redundant". One of our divisions is being absorbed into the mother company. The other two, including mine, are being merged into one business unit. It should be interesting to see what happens. Whatever does happen, today is a day of celebration for many folks as the 4 year cycle of stock vesting has been accelerated into 1 day (today). Anyone with viable stock options will be cashed out as if they waited and worked for the company for four years. A nice benefit of the merger, and totally necessary since our stock is ceased to exist as of this morning's open.

I'll keep you posted if there are any major changes to me personally, but I doubt anything will change, at least until the end of the year, but you never know.

Posted by andrew at 07:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by andrew at 01:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I was skiing down for one of the last run's of the day last Saturday at Alpine Meadow. I stopped to wait for the girls I was skiing with and I came across these two kids who had built a kicker (a jump for you non-skiers) in a remote part of the mountain. The kicker wasn't huge, maybe about 3 feet off the ground and the pitch wsan't that great, but the hill was steep and the landing was all soft powder.

One of the kids (the one pictured here), and these guys are maybe 16 years old, tells me that I should have been there a few minutes ago. He flew 70 feet off the kicker and landed it. OK. I didn't really believe him, but it didn't matter. Clearly these guys were serious. They could have jumped all day in the terrain park, but insead they spent hours fashioning this perfectly squared off kicker.

The guy, who was on skis, was getting his nerve up to do a forard a flip. He side stepped up the hill about 15 feet and was sort of gauging his courage while being egged on by his friend. I didn't think he had a chance because the pitch of the kicker was too shallow. I also didn't think he was going to go for it, but he started downhill, hit the kicker and flipped forward. He didn't pull the full 360 degrees, but he made about 280, I would guess, and landed on his ass in the cushy snow. It was impressive.

Right about the time the girls showed up, the other kid, the one on the snowboard took another jump. This time I had my camera ready. I can't beleive how well this shot turned out considered I was just using my little Canon S500 point and shoot which usually has a tough time dealing with any kind of motion, but it's sharp as a tack and stopped the motion dead in the air. Check out the to really see how good this is.

I didn't if he landed it this jump or even how far he flew, but the kid got some serious air. Must be great to have rubber bones and no fear.

Posted by andrew at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just received this odd email:

Hai ,
I have the feeling that this piece of mail will reach you in a perfect state of mind and in a better healthy codition. While searching through the members.yahoo.com I came accross your contact address and decided to contact you. I believe and also have the feeling that in todays world, neither race,age,nationality nor religion will any longer posse a barrier to male/female relationships.

Although, we do not know each other well but I will really like to have you as a friend or pen pal if that is better for you.I am a single lady of 25years old, currently studing international relations at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), a citizen of the United States of America residing in Los Angeles with my parents, brothers and sisters. Presently, I am doing my final year in the University and so anxious to graduate from the University into the free world. While I hope to hear from you soon,

I also look forward to receiving some information concerning you, your family, country and even your personal life experiences. This will give us the opportunity of knowing each other better and be able to understand ourselves more. May God bless you as I wait to hear from you soon through this email address.
Thanks.

Yours,
xxxxxxxxxx

What the hell is this? Is she serious or is some lead in to a scam that i haven't heard about? How can she look forward to hearing about my country when my profile clearly says I live in Alameda, CA? I thought for a second that maybe it still said Samoa, but I guess I changed that a while back and I need to update it again. But there's also a . I would send her a link to this blog, but not after writing this post. I don't know. It just seems odd. I don't get that many requests to be a pen pal. I thought that whole idea was dead. Then there's some unusual misspellings for a UCLA senior, some really poor punctuation and some seriously archaic turns of phrase. I don't know. Maybe this is just standards email English, but it feels wierd for some reason. Anybody?

Posted by andrew at 09:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It seems to be raining in Whistler. I just can't get away from it. Hopefully, if the forecast is right, it will just rain in the village and the snow will be dumping on the mountain because rain on the mountain makes for a less than fun ski holiday. In rain anywhere makes for a less than fun ski holiday.

Posted by andrew at 05:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The good news is that the taxes are done. Finished. Complete. And ahead of schedule. That's a serious load off. The bad is that between state and federal, I wrote almost 5 grand worth of checks. 4,888.00 to be exact. This isn't entirely bad news. It just feels like bad news since it's going to suck the life out of my savings account. On the other hand, the reason I owe so much is that I had a good year in the stock market. While I say that, I don't want this to happen again, so I've changed some of my investing habits. I moved a lot of money into mutual funds that I don't plan on trading and I'm only going to keep a small discretionary amount to fool around with. Why? Because it's fun.

Back to the taxes. I've always been an evangelist aginst the tax refund. Everyone likes to get a tax refund. Who doesn't like a check in the mail or money directly deposited into their checking account. But when you get a tax refund what it means is that you've been giving the government an interest free loan. Personally I don't want to do that even when I like the people running the government and I certainly don't want to do that know with those irresponsibile jokers in the White House.

That said I've never had to pay 5 grand in taxes before. I need to find some deductions this year and find them fast. I either need to buy a house, start a business or have some kids (too bad I can't deduct the cats because they are certainly dependent). Since it's not likely that I'm going to have kids any time soon and I probably won't be able to afford a house unless I win the lottery or move, looks like I'm going to have to start a business. Time to put the thinking cap on.

Posted by andrew at 04:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I found out this morning that the average rainfall in San Francisco for April is about 1.5 inches. So far this month, less than half through, we've gotten 4 inches of rain. That's a lot of rain. I'm not complaining too much because that's also a lot of snow. However when the weekend is done and the skiing is over, I do have come back down here and live and it's been a really, really we life lately. Today the sun is out and we have blue skies and feels almost wierd because it's been so long since we haven't had a miserable soggy day. It's gotta end sometime, right? It can't go on raining like this forever. Right?

Posted by andrew at 04:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm pretty done with my taxes. Like just about every year, I did them myself on Turbo Tax. The difference this year is that I made a lot of money in the market last year, so I have some short term capital gains that I owe on. Not really a bad thing. I'd rather owe than lose money and not owe. I'd just rather owe less. The current tally is running at about $2700.

So out of deparation I went to H&R Block for a consultation, just in case there might be some deductions I can take that I was missing, but I was SOL. I'm in the worst demographic for taxpayers: I'm single, no kids, don't own a home or any property, don't have a business and make enough money so that my contributions to my IRA are not even deductible.

I left H&R Block rather disheartened, but what are you going do? Maybe it's time to have a kid, buy a house or start a business. I'm leaning towards the two latter.

Posted by andrew at 07:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

It's raining here and it's been raining all week, so the skiing should be good tomorrow. I'm headed up to North Lake hopefully to ski some places I've never been to, Alpine and Sugar Bowl. I'm not driving, so I'm not calling the shots. Just along for the ride.

Here's a panorama from last weekend at Heavenly:


You really have to see the to appreciate it. It's over 12000 pixels wide.

Posted by andrew at 07:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

The game. Well? The game sucked. It was one of the most painful things to have to sit through. The team that I have been saying all along didn't really belong and was playing way above their heads, finally showed up and at the worst possible time. UCLA was thoroughly dominated. Hats off to Florida for outplaying the Bruins at every phase of the game. I never really thought UCLA should have made it this far. They should have beaten by Gonzaga at the very least. Amazingly, they scored the last 11 points of the game and pulled it out. There was a point in the second half when they canned 2 straight 3 that there was a glimmer of hope for another stellar comeback but it just wasn't to be. Every time UCLA got it within 10 points, Florida slammed the door by breaking the press and slamming it home or outhustling UCLA to the loose ball.

The real diffence in the game was inside. UCLA "big" men were clearly intimidated by Florida's shot blockers. It seemed refs were too, not calling what seemed to me to be some obvious fouls and clear traveling violations, not that it would have made difference. It hurts to lose. It hurts even more to lose to godforsaken Florida. The only silver lining for me is that I'm a huge Billy Donovan fan. I have been since he was a player alongside Delray Brooks under Rick Pitino for the Providence team that made an improbable and incredibly exciting run to the Final Four back in 87 when I was in high school. He's a class guy and well deserving of this national title.

UCLA will be back. They are very young team. We'll lose Hollins, but he was no great shakes despite being the MOP of the regional. He was too timid and too weak to go up against quality competition. Bozeman will be gone, but his career was beset by injuries and all he did was disappoint. So much promise. So little delivery. However, the core of the team, the guards Farmar and Afflalo are only sophomores. Most of the rest of the players are freshmen. And Ben Howland who has brought UCLA back from the brink of oblivion after intolerable losing seasons seems locked in, bringing east coast toughness and solid defense to a program that desparately needed it. Hopefully he will be around for 20 years or more.

Again, congratulations to Billy Donovan and Florida on a well deserved win.

Posted by andrew at 11:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The reward for waking up at 7am and getting on the mountain when the lifts open. I wish I could ski this stuff all day every day.

Posted by andrew at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

After watching the Bruins wipe the RCA Dome floor with the heavily overmatched (and favored) LSU Tigers, it's hard for me not to be optimisitic about tonight's game. They are playing so well in all aspects of the game, despite being a very young team. It's hard for me to believe that they are doing so well, but I'll take it.

Howver, Florida is a far tougher opponent than LSU. Their big men are better. They have 3 point threats which was something totally missing from the LSU arsenal. And they have a deeper bench. So if UCLA does manage to win, it won't be a blow out. It should be a close game, a defensive struggle. The winner will likely we lucky to get 60 points. UCLA should win, but only if they can hit their free throws. I'd bet that if UCLA hits more than 70% from the charity stripe, they will win. Alright, time to go home and watch the game.

GO BRUINS!!!!!!

Posted by andrew at 05:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Anyone who skis with me knows that I don't fall. It's not because I don't ski hard. I do. It's because I know my limits and I'm always (or almost always) in balance. But on Saturday morning, I had the biggest wipeout of my life.

Before I get into this, let me just say that Brian and I had a great weekend skiing at Heavenly. Sure, Brian had some equipment problems (what's new?) but we got that solved, we had great conditions and the mountain was virtually empty.

On Friday night we drove through a blizzard to get dinner. While we ate, about 45 minutes, 4 inches of snow had piled on the car. In all there was 18 inches of fresh powder and blue skies when we woke at 7am on Saturday morning. We had breakfast at Heidi's Pancake Haus and were on the mountain by 9am. No one around. Pretty shocking for Saturday. I guess the roads must have been closed for most of the night and it scared people off.

The snow was deep almost everywhere. If you're not used to, it can rip up your leg muscles. Early on, Brian made it clear that he was suffering with his boots and had to take a break. He went off to the Lakeview Lodge to stretch out and I went off to ski by myself.

Up on the Canyon Express at the top of the California side, it was pretty socked in with low clouds. Visibility was maybe 20 feet, but he light was perfectly flat and you could not see variations in the terrain. I should have taken this under consideration, but, foolishly, I didn't, because I thought I was skiing a groomed track, Ridge Run. It was groomed, at least most of it. I made a few turns and headed towards the steeper portion where I hit a bank of power that I did not (and could not) see. I was launch out of my skis, flew through the air and landed face first into a fat pile of snow. It happened so fast I didn't even realize what had happened. One milisecond I was skiing looking into a white world, the next I was buried in snow looking into darkness. It was stunning.

Naturally all this happened right under the lift, so I as I gathering myself and did a sanity/body part check, I could hear people above me saying, nice yard sale, dude! I got up, looked around. I could see my two poles and one ski. I dusted the snow off my body, my hat, my goggles, my face and went searching for the other ski which fortunately turned up quickly. I snapped on the bindings and took off, thankful that I was in one piece.

Throughout the day I started noticing things that were a little awry. There was some pain in my right thumb. I must have hyperextended it when I landed. There was the beginnings of a bruise on the outside of my right wrist. I could have landed on my pole, but I'm not sure. The inner thigh on my left leg was a little tender. And most inexplicably, there was a dried patch of blood under my chin. It's nothing major. No broken bones. No head injury. No need for Ski Patrol. If that's the worst thing that ever happens to me when I ski, I'll be very fortunate. But I'm sore all over and I'm not sure how much it has to do with skiing 3 hard consecutive days for the first time in 2 years and how much was a result of my "cushioned" wipe out in the powder. I'm sure it's nothing a few days rest and some Advil won't cure.

Posted by andrew at 05:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Are we really going to make a martyr of Zacarias Moussaoui? It looks like it's possible now that a jury has found him eligible for death penalty. Whatever you think of him, and I think he's complete scum and probably does deserve to die, it's not only a far, far worse punishment for him to rot in jail for the rest of his life but also it avoids turning him into cause celebre by fundamentalists. But I fear that the bloodlust that has gripped our erstwhile Christian society will not let him live.

Posted by andrew at 05:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This piece in New Yorker about the secret investigation the Bush administration untook regarding the the decision-making within Saddam Hussein's dictatorship is really unbelievable. Here's a sample of the devastating threat that we went to war with to protect American from mushroom clouds:

The study portrays the Iraqi President as a fading adversary who felt boxed in by sanctions and political pressure. Saddam's former generals and civilian aides-such as his principal secretary, Lieutenant General Abed Hamid Mahmoud, and the former Iraqi foreign minister, Tariq Aziz-describe their old boss as a Lear-like figure, a confused despot in the enervating twilight of a ruthless career: unable to think straight, dependent upon his two lunatic and incompetent sons, and increasingly reliant on bluff and bluster to remain in power. Saddam lay awake at night worrying about knotty problems, and later issued memos based on the dreams he had when he drifted into sleep. As the invasion approached, he so feared a coup that he refused to allow his generals to prepare seriously for war. Instead, he endorsed a plan for the defense of Baghdad that essentially instructed his generals to talk with no one, think rousing thoughts, and await further orders. The generals knew that to question their leader or his sons was suicide, so they just saluted. "We're doing great!" the Minister of Defense wrote to his field commanders on April 6th, as Baghdad fell.

Good thing we didn't bankrupt the country trying to oust this guy from power, right?

Posted by andrew at 04:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)