One brief moment of tourism on this trip... picked up two bottles of local wine at the "Wine and More" shop. It's pretty much a BevMo, but has even more meat; almost a full butcher shop.

Today I learned to speak an important phrase: אני לא מדבר עברית

It means "I don't speak Hebrew". Since I can't read that, Vered wrote it in pseudo-phonetic English and I modified it a bit: ah-knee low meh-dah-bear eve-reet

So far everyone I've said it to around the office knows what I'm saying. The reason I wanted to learn this was this morning while out for a run I came across a film set, they were filming two people walking over a bridge. A security guy came out to stop me from getting in the way and said a bunch of stuff and I just made a non-committal noise and waved my hands toward the road and went around the filming. Would have been cool to tell him I don't know what he's saying. :)

Also on the language front I was having fun making a sign to put on a broken chair I was moving out toward the trash pile we're creating:

OK technically it says "broken" but whatever, no one can read both languages and the US people are the only ones who get the joke.

Everything is moving along well in the deployment which is why I have time to make signs and learn stupid phrases. That's a good thing,it's nice to actually be on schedule for a change.

Drama free flight to Tel Aviv, well not exactly drama free in that we had a freaking Guido family complete with a Snookie acting like white trash royalty and complaining about everything but drama free as in no real delays or anything. I didn't sleep very well on the 2nd flight, my head was too full of worries around work, the future, getting a car before I need one, etc.

The hotels by the office were full so the next closest approved hotel is 17km away in Tel Aviv. It's still a beach front tourist hotel but it's not as nice as the others. Looks out over the same water though and running on the beach is just as much of a workout. The breakfasts are exactly the same too.

If you look closely in this picture of the view out of my room you can see what was the "Dolphinarium", which used to have dolphins in it. Then it was converted to a night club and then it was bombed by some dude. Details are here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphinarium_discotheque_suicide_bombing and now I know what that sign outside it says (as it's not in English I had no idea).

Not being in walking distance means we're stuck in cabs in traffic a lot. We've got this scrap of paper that has the address and gives two land marks, a famous restaurant and the DMV inspection station. Apparently ever cab driver knows where the DMV is. :)

Mike wanted some Guinness and I wanted to try Mexican food here and luck would have it I found both in one place while on my run. "Mikes Place" is a pseudo-Irish pub that serves Guinness and has Mexican on the menu in addition to burgers and whatnot. What are the odds? The food looked correct, but the spice palette was definitely middle eastern and not Mexican. It tastes just like every other ground meat wrapped in bread here, although the "salsa" was surprisingly good.

On the road again... sitting at SFO waiting for the 6am flight to Newark. By booking the travel myself this time I got to check the box to get better service on the domestic leg as well as the over-water. The economy check-in line was like 10000 people long even at 4:30am, the first class line? 2. They even have a separate little hidden security screening next to the first class area that had a line of 0 people. I just walked up and it was me and 6 TSA droids. I figured they would do extra searches since they had nothing to do but they were more than happy to continue doing nothing. Whew.

So.... Vareck tells us yesterday that he's been raising a kid for the last 6 years. Surprising.

Last night Andrew came and bought the Suzuki, and I got the check from dad for the Jeep. For the first time since I was 16 I don't own a car. Probably should fix that before too long!

The stuffed Kia "hamstar" that Chuck pointed out on eBay arrived yesterday and the woman took no time introducing the real rodent to the stuffed one. I think she's finally flipped out...

Rental in AUS this time is a new Focus (only 5400 miles). It's a really nice car, although the automatic transmission seems stupider than most. Poking along in traffic it shifts from 1st to 5th to 2nd to 3rd to I don't know what just bouncing around constantly at low speed. Very annoying. Can't tell if it's a CVT trying to pretend it has gears or if it's just a really stupidly programmed traditional.

Some quick searching confirms it, the car is awesome but the transmission sucks balls. Wired said it funniest (but NYTimes also bagged about it): The dual-clutch six speed ain't too proud to rev, especially in lower gears, but it sure can’t make up its mind. It's less noticeable in the higher gears but in around-town driving, the tester I drove felt like the shift points were just plain wrong. Up-shifts feel like a 10-year-old kid is rowing the gears while his dad works the third pedal, and the downshifts must have been programmed by a long-haul trucker with a fondness for engine braking.

Waiting to board my AUS flight, can't tell if it's going to be super full yet or not. Mostly looks like business travelers, only a few tourist looking types actually dressed for the weather at the destination.

This weekend was pretty non-eventful. I got the front steps painted with the fancy paint with the 'grip crystals' in it so now it should be water proof and not slippery. The color is really off though, it's supposed to be a darker gray but it's really what I'm calling 'battleship gray'. The woman doesn't want the upstairs deck painted with it, but that's fine as it doesn't get all that much rain on it and the paint is still in good shape.

The woman learned the joys of car care by washing, waxing and detailing her ride. I don't think she enjoyed the process but she was happy with the results. Inside the engine bay and anywhere there isn't clear coat is really a funky OD green color, it's only with the upper layers that you get the brown/gold/green mix.

My quest to find a "camp-able" 4x4 that isn't a suburban is starting to solidify a little. The Montero Sport and the Honda Passport/Isuzu Rodeo were both contenders until I found units and put the tape measure to them. Too short by a good amount. The ones still in the running are the Xterra, the 4runner and the Explorer. I found what looked like a nice example of an explorer at one of the for sale by owner lots... but as soon as I opened it up the stench of dog pee ruined the whole thing. At least I hope it was dog pee...

I've found this site which is my inspiration: http://mycolorado.org/4runner_camping.html.

I added my last class cert to the pile. I think it's official, I've spent more on psycho training classes than I spent at OSU. Not on practice, recreational shooting, guns, etc, just the tuition of the classes and ammo used in said classes. Nuts. You would think I would be better by now. I don't think this pile includes some of those 'off the grid' classes that weren't held in a public range.

Today I picked up a copy of my last audiogram for purposes I can't mention due to NDA, but it's at least interesting to see how far my hearing has degraded. Related to all the psycho certs!??!?!

Came to work yesterday and this was in front of IL1:

Apparently some eco terrorists/hippies/whatever were projecting images from this pod onto the building and while I was there they were using their PA system to tell us to be green. The cops were all sorta wandering around not sure what to do. Our facilities rep was out front and I suggested they just light a fire under it and the people would come out on their own. He didn't take me up on it. Oddly reminds me of the scene in Ringworld Engineers where Chmeee gets cooked in the lander when the natives build a bond fire around it.

Went to clays yesterday as well, and Brian N was in town from Austin so he came along. While several people watched I shot my best round to date! It went rapidly downhill from there, but at least I've upped my max.

After much searching (and time spent at Kia dealers) the woman bought her car today. The only 'moss' colored Soul+ in CA, Reno or Phoenix and she still managed to cut a deal on it. Finally she used her mind powers for evil instead of good! In the pics it looks brown, but in real life it's either brown or dark green or sorta gray. She loves it because it changes colors in the light. I'm just happy she got what she wants (I was voting for white but whatever).

So Sunday was me riding home from Redding and car shopping, but Saturday was me riding up to Redding to check on the land. My mom wanted to go too for some reason but instead of bringing the RV which would have made it like a camping trip the drove her car and stayed in a hotel. WTF? Anyway, mom went a little overboard on the lunch as you can see, but we did get the generated run and the weeds cut down a little. Now that I think about it I should find an old lawn mower and take that up there so each time I run the generator I can also.... hmm.... wait, if I got an electric lawnmower I could run it and the pump off the single generator and not have two things to put gas in and have to run dry each time. Brilliant! Now if I can just find a cheap electric mower.

Was today "ride your vstrom to work day"? In addition to the red/black one I often see going the other way on 280, a silver/black one just like mine (including a top case and side bag mounts) blasted past me on 237 and then I saw a blue/white one at the 101 interchange. Considering I'm lucky to see that one once a week, today was a bonanza.

Traffic has been weird this whole week so far, the metering lights at 880 aren't even on and things don't really suck until the 237/101 exchange. Where did everyone go? Another holiday week for the schools?

Tuesday I shot trap with Pat and to tempt me into the world of auto-loading shotguns he let me shoot his Benelli. Recoil is really cut down with all of that action cycling going on, and I like the loading sounds it makes when you close the action, and it's easy to shoot. Because it's really long it's got more mass on the end and it sorta forces you to sweep through your shot like you're supposed to. My first round I got a 20/25 which is above average. Then I switched back to my shotgun and got a 19/25, but that's when I noticed I wasn't following through with mine (it's light enough you can just jerk it to a stop which is not the technique for shotguns). The third round again with mine but focusing on my follow-through and I got a 22/25. My average is going up, I think now it seems that an 18/25 is a bad round and a 19/25 is probably normal. Progress.

My windows VM freaked out again so rather than fix it I'm just RDPing into the radio PC upstairs. There seems to be some lag vs. the VM, but the PC upstairs is on wireless so maybe that's adding some latency or something as the wireless network is pretty congested at our complex.

I haven't been able to check in on the packet net for a few weeks now, every time I go to the packet frequency it's being blasted with some sort of interference. I asked our local EC and he said that someone has dumped a digital repeater right next to our frequency and it's about 1/2 way into our space. That blows.

I patched the screen the Friday, my other patch using the little metal screen squares that lock into the existing screen failed after a couple of years. I doubt this fix will last that long but it was the only materials I had on hand.

I wrote this on the foo list yesterday as a quick summary of my shooting class (first pistol class since '07 apparently....)

I just went to my first pistol class since 2007 and of the 14 students
I was the only 1911.  Everyone else was either Glock or a sig that
looked like a Glock, and I think I had the only metal frame in the
lot.

I was also the only non-"high cap capable" weapon on the field.  The
drills were setup around 10 round mags so I had to not only miss less,
but had to reload more and often at "unexpected" times vs the rest of
the field.  Felt pretty good though, there was a 15 shot drill, you
had to fire 3 center mass, 1 head shot and 1 pelvic shot on 3
different targets starting from the holster.   Everyone else got to
fire 10 then reload with one left while transitioning to the 3rd
target.  Me being 8+1 got to fire to slide lock, reload, reengage that
last shot on the far left target before swinging back to the far right
for the last 5 shots.  I wore a vest all day so I was drawing the
weapon from under a cover garment from the goofy level 2 holster and
the mags from cover.  I was the only one in the class to move during
my reloads.  My two times were 15.61 and 14.32 seconds both clean.
The next closest shooter was 16-something with 4 misses and it just
got worse from there.  After the runs people suddenly wanted to know
all about the 1911, as if somehow it's the weapon that makes you good
(OK, the awesome trigger helps :).

One clear failing of the 1911 is how it binds up when dirty.  We were
on the ground doing urban prone and some other stuff and the ground
was gravel and really really find sand/grit/whatever (probably was
Vareck's been living in for the last few years).  Shooting from 3" off
the deck my pistol is full of crap and really binding up.  It didn't
fail to function at any time but if I had to be in those conditions
for more than a day with minimal cleaning it would rapidly become a
single shot.

I tried to take a picture of the grit but most of it got wiped off when I put the pistol up. You can see a little there, that fine white powder is all over the inside still. It's a mix of junk from the cheapie ammo and powdered rock. Not fun.

Today my parents came down for two reasons, one was to bring the pressure washer so I could clean the patio and stairs in preparation for re-painting (the stairs with water proof epoxy based stuff, not the patio itself) and to swap vehicles. Dad is going to take the Jeep, I'll take the Suzuki wagon back and at some point will either trade it in on something for myself or the woman. Car shopping with her has been an experience. She doesn't have any real criteria other than the car has to drive well and 'be cute'. She doesn't like the new sentra, or the Mazda 3 or 2, or the focus or the fiesta or anything else in the approximate cost bracket other than the scion xD and the Kia soul. She drove an xD on Saturday and said it's underpowered, and we drove a soul on Friday night and it was fine (a touch boring) but it has an idle problem. At idle it vibrates, a lot. Sorta like an old V8 with a bad automatic and a failing torque converter. It's all over the forums about it, there is no cure other than to 'get used to it'. Guess it works for broken apple products why not cars?

I imagine she'll eventually get a soul, just finding one in the color she wants will be a trick. There are few good small cars left anywhere unless you want a corolla, minivan or SUV (although the Jeep dealer had a crappy selection of stuff when I went by the other day). With gas on it's way up the small cars are selling, or maybe the auto companies just aren't making anything these days? It's just odd to see empty car lots.

Pictures of the mostly clean patio and steps and the Jeep as they drive away. Wonder how they enjoyed the ride home? :)

Kenny's progress in TKD makes me want to get back into martial arts, minus the crazy knee injury though. That's gotta suck.

The woman finds this photo amusing, it's the cop (Doyle) and I at the safety fair last week, I'm not sure how we both ended up in that same pose.

Let's see... without my pics I can't remember all of what happened over the weekend. They're not on the phone anymore so they're in iPhoto and I'm not on console so... let's see if I can dig them out of there command line style.... hey, that worked. Guess Apple isn't so anal about screwing up finding your photos like they are with movies and music.

OK first note, this 'fruit water' they make at work and give us for free is pretty awesome. The woman points out it's probably leftover fruit from the salad bar but whatever, it's tasty and better than koolaid.

Saturday while the woman attended the SAFE graduation and helped out with the finals, I ran some errands including getting food for her 'outside pets' and getting the special paint that's needed to repaint the front deck and stairs. It's a heavy floor paint and you mix in this silica stuff to give it the grippy texture. I tried scrubbing the deck to get the dirt off prior to painting but it didn't work so well, I'm going to need to get a pressure washer from somewhere and clean it. Wonder if they still rent those at OSH? They do have this stuff at OSH, which to me sounds like a breakfast cereal for rednecks: :)

In the afternoon we went to one winery with Scott and Lina. They've been bugging us to go to one of the larger wineries and the woman caved in this time, she said we have to let them have some victories on picking places even if they tend to suck. This one didn't turn out bad, we got there around 3pm and it wasn't that crowded but by 4pm the place was packed and crazy noisy. I realize we're on the very edge of being pretentious douche bags ourselves with the number of tastings we've gone to, but seriously the people at wineries are major asses. Not the people who work there (who are usually pretty happy talking to normal people it seems) but the clientele are just so freakin' annoying. Yes, you're hip, yes you have your fashionable clothing and your women are tarted up and smell like a fragrance counter exploded on them, we get it. Just stop acting like you're on your yacht with a bunch of high class people. Here's the hint that you're not all that, you're actually standing at the wine tasting with the rest of us. If you really were as important as you think you are they would bring the tasting to your yacht.

Scott joined their wine club so we got to use his discount to pick up a few bottles. The woman and I liked the one pictured more than anything else so we added 2 to the collection. It's probably almost as good as the Fogarty '07 that we can't get anymore (that I have one bottle left horded away according to the wine tracker app on my phone that I just had to use to get the right year :)

After the tasting we went to Cin Cin Wine Bar in Los Gatos for an early dinner. As we only really tasted 3 wines at the winery (I only do the reds and we got 1 extra not on the menu because Scott joined the club) we decided to do a few flights at the bar:

It looks like a crazy amount of wine, but they're all 2oz pours so if you combine all the glasses you almost get 2 regular glasses of wine between us... almost. We each found one we like and I found the stuff I liked on-line for $10/bottle. Might just have to order some and make it the 'house wine' for a while. As the woman pointed out we drink less than 1 bottle per week, so it would take us forever to go through a case of 12. Good point.

The food was a bunch of taster plates (cheeses and their house made charcuterie) from the happy hour menu, plus I decided to try the "Korean Tacos". It's basically a taco with korean BBQ pork rib meat for filling, plus all the usual Mexican taco stuff being replaced with the Korean equivalent. Sounds funky as hell and when you pick it up you're expecting Mexican flavors but you get korean. Good, but honestly I think it's better just to get the real thing, either Mexican tacos or korean bbq. Damn, now I'm hungry for korean food.

Sunday the woman rode and I rode up Hwy 9 to the range and did a little practicing for my class next week. Uh... running out of time to type this so I'll just say we made some fresh pizza dough to freeze for dinners in the future and I made a full batch of pasta using up the last of those eggs the woman got at the barn last week.