Author: F C

‘All or nothing’ gamble succeeds’, BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3618883.stm

Thirty-two year old Londoner Ashley Revell sold everything he had, including his apartment, his car and his clothes, went to Las Vegas in a rented tux, and bet it all on red on roulette, and won. I don’t know if he did it for a dramatic Spring Break stunt, the adrenaline rush, or just to see who his true friends and family were. I’m just happy it worked out for him.

I think that is actually the lesson of Easter — that perhaps we should be prepared to give up what we are comfortable with in order to take advantage of new opportunities in our lives. I am sure that is what YC is up to in going to Taiwan.

Recap from my friend’s niece bowling birthday party in Pasadena.
[Typewritten on the back of an AMC bowling party post card:]

To: FC & P--

3/29/04
Hi P-- & FC:
Your Godiva chocolate were
delicious. I ate all of them
without sharing with
anybody. My brother stole
one chocolate & the nut got
stuck in his braces. He
deserves it! Thank you
very much for coming to
my party & thanks again for
the fancy chocolate.
L--

That was really sweet!

I’m off today; my department’s some of the only people who did not have this week off from work. However, I just laid in bed at P–‘s house (she had to go to work) so my penance today was to clean up after her sister’s 2 dogs. They are generally indoor dogs, and one of them must have had a serious case of the runs. While she did manage to mostly hit the newspaper, it still doesn’t make it any easier to pick it up.

My co-worker’s retiring and taking a CFO job in Sweden; we’re having a celebratory BBQ at his house this afternoon.

OK, I had not gotten my California travelogue entries in yet, but the pictures are here.

To summarize:
Saturday, March 27: JFK to SAN; arrive 10 AM, get a rental car from Hertz with Neverlost GPS (recommended), drove to the Carlsbad Flower Fields in bloom, visited El Camino Mortuary Park to do an early Ching Ming for my grand aunt and uncle; was running late to Newport Beach, so detour to Pasedena to catch my friend’s niece’s 11th bowling birthday party. Visited the Bona Vista revolving bar at the Westin Bonaventure. Went to Hollywood, saw Mann’s Chinese Theatre, and the Kodak Theater. Ordered massive amounts of Tommy’s chilli-topped dive through menu items. Slept in Newport Beach.

Sunday, March 28: Went to Balboa Island for church. Someone fainted in the middle of the service; the woman standing to my right turned out to be a doctor. Passed out myself for a few hours as my friend’s husband helped all of us run for the border in his car. Crossed into Tiajuana, bought Mexican car insurance from a clean, if a bit shady tourist info station. Did a straight run to Ensenada on Mexico’s route 1-D, an excellent 2 lane toll road with spectacular vistas. Randomly drove up and down Ave. Reunion trying to find the church my boss said his son was at to drop off his birthday present. Found one of the other missionaries that worked for him, who accepted the package. We then drove to Puerto Nuevo, capital of fried Pacific lobster. $14 for 3 halves of 1 1/2 lb. lobsters. Delicious! Had drinks while watching the sunset at Villa Ortega’s, 2 doors down. In pitch darkness, bought ceramics. Drove back to Newport Beach; customs didn’t even bother checking documents — just asked “Everyone American?”.

Monday, March 29: Had a wonderful brunch across the street. After taking it easy, we drove towards San Diego. Parked at the Embarcadero across the ship Star of India. Ate super-fresh sushi at The Fish Market. Rode the carousel at the Seaport Village (originally made in Coney Island!). GPS guided us to P–‘s friend Steve’s house. Examined his new mobile home.

Tuesday, March 30: Checked out downtown, bought our mandatory See’s Chocolates. Visited the Chinatown Museum. Spent the afternoon at the San Diego Zoo. Hua Mei the panda was sprawled backwards on the ground, while her son was high up in the trees avoiding view. Finished up at the Hotel del Coronado, where I had a wonderful half-hour massage in the spa to take care of a nagging right elbow sprain. Went back to Steve’s house to pack and eat, made it to the airport with time to spare. Took the redeye back to JFK and work.

Total travel: over 6,000 miles by air, 900 miles by car. Won our American Airlines Gold Challenge, and Fly NYC Challenges, coming out with an extra 5634 FF miles, a free ticket anywhere AA flies, and AA Gold status. Travel proven and with nary a disagreement, my relationship with P– is ever closer and stronger. It was well worth it.

Right now we’re at P–‘s friend Steve’s place in San Diego. We went to Newport Beach, Pasedena, LA and then down to Mexico – Ensenada and Puerto Nuevo. Awesome seafood. 90 degrees! More details when I get back on Wednesday.

I’m leaving for San Diego tomorrow morning with P– for the second half of my California travels in search of that American Airlines free ticket ™. YC is driving down from San Jose to rendezvous with my friends in Newport Beach. Later, we’ll drive just over the border. More movement on the “where in the world are we now” meter!

Sorry folks, I don’t know anything about March Madness. I barely have enough interest to track one team from one game to the next; keeping track of 4 teams through 64 games is just not going to happen for me. However, if you do want to know how it works, How Stuff Works has the answer.

Spring has sprung, and there is some traces of snow melting before our eyes, but can we remember what we want to forget? Haven’t seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but based on the reviews, I can see that we live these attempts to remember and forget every day. I’d love to wipe out the memories of this winter. The movie sounds awesome — it has a high Fresh-o-Meter — maybe we’ll see it on the way to San Diego next weekend with P-.

Saw The Big O Part 1. This anime is basically (dark) Batman meets big-ass Godzilla sized Japanese robot warrior. The major premise is that because of some unknown type of warfare, the entire city-state has lost their memory, but nothing physical has been destroyed, so they are reconstructing civilization based on what they have around them. Recommended.

Judged a moot court competition on Thursday. The plot: reality show producer puts cast(aways) on U.S. territory out in the middle of the Pacific. Turns out it was a former nuclear and biological weapons test site and everyone gets sick and dies, including the producer. The network scores high ratings. The producer, 2 weeks before kicking the bucket, pleads guilty of manslaughter for the castaways’ deaths and points the finger at the network. The government wants to prosecute the network using what the producer said in court, but she’s dead and she can’t be cross-examined. It’s much more intricate, involving attorney-client privilege, public relations firms, Homeland Security, and a bothersome Supreme Court case, but that’s the outline. For those legal geeks here, the bizarre thing is that we have an inanimate defendant pressing its Confrontation Clause rights against a dead woman. Definately not what the Founding Fathers were thinking about.

Food craziness : today dimsum at Dim Sum Go Go, a work dinner party at Tavern on the Green. Thursday, we did La Paella in the East Village, recommended.

I’m here in front of Amy’s Bread in Chelsea Market. We were surfing using the in-house wireless network while sitting on a stone bench in front of the bakery when whey just wheeled out a whole rack of free bread! You should have seen the mob swarm up! P– ran up and got us two bags, but she came out of there all covered in flour. Just so you know — 6:30 pm when they close.

SSW got me thinking. Over the last three months, I’ve had a new found appreciation for barrier free architecture. I dragged my father up the stairs this evening in a wheelchair. Today was a particularly bad day, but we “borrowed” the chair from the clinic he was at because he was so weak. The brownstone my parents rent is beautiful but incredibly unfriendly — pulling 200 lbs of person and chair up two flights of steps isn’t really ideal, albeit better than trying to piggyback 150 lbs.

In the next two months, my brother is planning to swap his more access friendly apartment with my parents. That apartment has an elevator, and the back buzzer door provides a ramped entrance. Let’s see how that goes.