This is Going to Revolutionize My Laziness

Hi Blog,

I got a new computer yesterday. Well, its 4 months used, but its new to me. Ebay saves you lots of money. Its a 13" MacBook Pro, its got more memory, battery life, processing power, etc, etc than my PowerBook G4 (you served me well). But none of that is important, what is important is this small, cheap little device that the seller included with my purchase...

This is the Apple Remote, and it is neither new, nor improved. It retails for $19 and it is extraordinarily simplistic in its design. Despite its modest appearance, its function is without a doubt phenomenal.

Like many of you, I enjoy lying in bed, surrounded by the warmth and comfort that said bed provides. In fact, I probably enjoy it more than you, because my bed is unnecessarily enormous (its a California King, appropriate no?). Nothing upsets me more than having to drag myself out of bed to turn off the repetitive music on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia DVD title screens at 3am once I've passed out after selecting 'Play All'. Sometimes I even fail to set the volume to a proper level and have to get out of bed to adjust it! Its horrible.

Well all that is in the past. The Apple Remote can handle all my media needs from the comfort of my oversized bed. This little device is going to revolutionize my laziness.

P.S.

Interestingly enough (or not), when you search 'California King' on Wikipedia, it automatically directs you to the generic entry for 'Bed'. It starts off with the history of beds...

"Early beds were little more than piles of straw or some other natural material. An important change was raising them off the ground, to avoid draughts, dirt, and pests..."

Props to whoever thought of that one, I'd hate to be down there among the dirt and pests.

I've Made a Huge Mistake

So tonight I had to get over to Lafayette, CA. Its just on the other side of the hills from Berkeley. I took the BART to within about 2.5 miles of my destination, and then proceeded to ride my bike the rest of way. I had it all mapped out, I knew the potential to get lost in suburbia was high, so I wrote down all the turns I needed to make. However, I did not consult a topographic map.

Topographic maps, as I'm realizing, are very important in California. They inform you when you simply shouldn't be trying to scale a certain vertical pitch, let alone try and ride your bike up one. Unfortunately for me, the highest point in Rhode Island is the landfill, so I'm not used to worrying about drastic increases in elevation. Well, I suppose I got what was coming to me tonight.

Below are two maps for comparison. The first is the route I took, the second is the route I should have taken. The difference in elevation is several hundred feet.

Elevation at the Orinda BART station is 476 feet. After turning onto Bates Blvd, I was greeted with a elevation rise from 518 feet to 892 feet in 0.6 miles. This is no Mt. Everest, but when you have a few pints in you, its more than you'd like to surmount. To say the hike uphill was arduous would be an understatement.

After reaching peak elevation at 892 feet, I descended to an elevation of 602 feet in just 0.4 miles. To say I wasn't worried about my brakes failing or careening off a cliff in the dark on the way down would be a lie. The suburbs are not well lit. Halfway down I rode past the home of the Consulate-General of Cyprus. I was too distraught to stop in and say hello.

Learn from my mistakes, please consult your topographic maps.

Also: Senator Evan Bayh writes an Op-Ed in the NYT on why he's leaving the Senate...

It's Time for a Post With Some Substance

I've spent most of my recent posts writing about recent developments in my life in what could, at best, be described as semi-articulate ranting. This is all well and good, but once in a while I'd like to, as my high school Latin teach Miss Tom would say, 'engage brain'. So I leave it up to you, imaginary readership... what should I write about?

I realize the potential for my own immense disappointment at lack of responses to this poll, but seeing that I don't actually expect any, and I am allotting myself one vote, I will undoubtedly produce a winning option, so its a win-win-win-win situation, as Michael Scott would so aptly describe it.

You will find the poll in the sidebar of this here blog, next to Eduardo. Happy voting.

Also, for your consumption: 'Ohio Man Builds 'Man Cave' Out of Snow'

Working Undercover for the Man: Part 3

The worst part about this conference? It has limited my viewing of the Olympics. Speaking of the Olympics, 'Oh look! They're showing Tony Dungy in the crowd for men's figure skating. And he's wearing an Oregon football hat!' Screw you Tony Dungy, screw the Colts, and screw Oregon.

Men's figure skating is cool though, those guys got skills.

For real though, go USA. I just watched Hannah Teter and Kelly Clark take home Silver and Bronze in the women's halfpipe... excellent work ladies. At the moment we've got 17 medals (5/5/7), with Germany trailing a distant second with 11. I love the Olympics.

I don't actually have much to file in my report today... could you tell? Ana-Marie Jones' keynote speech was awesome, I'm glad she works in Oakland. I also got a tutorial on open-source GIS mapping, which really only helped me understand how very little I know about it.

Also, I ate dinner in the hotel bar while watching women's ice hockey with a guy from St. Louis that works at a LHD and a girl from Vermont who now works at a fellow Advanced Practice Center in Oregon. Its nice to have Boston sports fans around to help you boo Peyton Manning when they show his face too many times on ESPN.

That's all I got. I'm tired, and tomorrow's flight back west promises to screw up my sleep patterns even more. At some point between now and Monday I have to find time to complete the mountain of work that awaits me.

Addendum:

Holy crap, I cannot believe I missed THIS! Downtown Atlanta, while I'm here? You've got to be kidding. Stupid GIS training session. I should have been out wandering along the highway.

Working Undercover for the Man: Part 2

I am once again operating on perilously low levels of sleep. I hope I'm not endangering the mission. Once I complete this report, its lights out.

Today began with a terrible realization... these people follow schedules down to the minute. They don't even respect 'Berkeley Time' (+10 minutes for those of you unfamiliar with this term). Not having fallen asleep until 2:30am due to my biological clock, I was nevertheless determined to make it downstairs to breakfast, which was being served from 7am-8am.

True to my nature I carefully calculated the maximum amount of sleep I could attain and still make it to the lobby by 7:59am. I awoke at 7:40, dragged my sorry ass into the shower, ironed my disguise, and hustled downstairs. It was 8:04am... and no breakfast in sight. Nothing but empty carafes, bowls of ice that once housed yogurt and several bagels waiting to be returned to the kitchen (one of them never made it back). I resorted to paying inflated Starbucks prices to feed my caffeine addiction. It was as if an army of caterers descended upon the breakfast spread at precisely 8:00 and executed a 3-minute cleanup with the precision of a cruise missile guidance system.

Most of the day consisted of attending 'sessions'. The morning opened with a keynote address by John Barry, author of 'The Great Influenza' and advisor to a bunch of so-and-so's about flu. The man knows his material, but I think he should stick to writing. I also attended sessions on Disaster Epidemiology & Surveillance, 'The Wild World of Public Health Labs', and 'Laboratory, Public Health Investigation, and Surveillance Performance Measures' for the CDC PHEP grant that goes to states and certain cities. I actually learned a fair amount and most were at least relativley interesting.

More importantly, I saw Alysia and Marissa from RIDOH (my former bosses), and discovered that there was a poster presentation from the one-and-only Kate McCarthy-Barnett, another former supervisor for an outreach program I worked with at Health. Kate wasn't actually there to present the poster, but it was semi-rewarding to see a project I worked on displayed at a national conference.

Last note: Best schwag out of all the booths and vendors displayed here is pictured below. Its a beer koozie from 'Morturary Response Solutions', basically they make high-tech body bags for mass fatality incidents. If you can't read the print on the koozie, it says 'When all that Remains, Are Remains'.

Working Undercover for the Man: Part 1

I've arrived. Everything has proceeded smoothly thus far. There was a slight hangup at SF International Airport when they had to reassign all the seats on our flight, but those savvy pilots made up for lost time in the air and I arrived here in Atlanta right on time... East Coast Time. Please blame any obvious delirium contained in this report on the three hours stolen from my psyche, hours I was depending on... but that I must carry on without.

This is my first covert assignment. I am posing as as adult, employed as a public health professional, and attending the 2010 Public Health Preparedness Summit. So far, I must admit, being an adult does seem to have its perks... your flight is booked and paid for by other people, at departure times of your choosing, you can take a cab to your hotel without worrying how much cheaper public transportation would have been and best of all, you get to sleep in the space station where they're holding the conference. Yes, space station...

If that is not space station-esque, I don't know what is. The Atlanta Marriott Marquis looks like a swanky alien palace from Star Trek: The Next Generation. I think I saw Commander Riker in the elevator tonight. Time has treated him well.

Anyways, do not fear... the lavish temptations of adulthood, as you well know, do not suit me particularly well. I see this brief mission as a chance to not only complete our objectives, but to hone my skills, as I realize this is not the last undercover mission this campaign will ask me to undertake.

For tonight, I leave you with photos of my quarters aboard Space Ship Hotlanta and one of my several disguises I'll be using while on mission. I will file my next report tomorrow.

Buzz Off

Dear Google,

Please don't add twitter-esque crap to my Gmail account without prior, written consent. I realize the market for social-networking software is sorely lacking and that its difficult for people to stay in touch these days... wait, nope.

Use this button, turn off Buzz...