The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

My plans to visit friends and finally tour the Holocaust museum are on hold now, as the governments and businesses of the DC area and the Metro system are shut down for Thursday and presumably Friday as well. I have no idea if I'll get to see anyone while I'm here, aside from my family. I'm already sick of the storm coverage. They've hyped Isabel to the point that if it isn't an earth-shattering cataclysm of a storm, people will be disappointed. They're all going to be at home, waiting to be impressed, and if all we get is some rain and a little wind, people will complain about the time and money lost. OTOH, if it flattens everything in its path, I'll feel better being stuck out here in Bowie instead of being caught downtown out in the open. Maybe I'll get out to Virginia on Sunday to see some people. Who knows? Virginia as we know it may not be there by Friday morning.

Since my father hasn't gotten his cable modem installed yet, I've been reduced back to dial-up. I hate "narrowband" Internet access.

I've gone back to school

I'm back at Georgetown University today, the first stop on my five-day vacation trip to DC. After a dull early-morning bus ride here, I hauled my luggage across campus to my father's office in St. Mary's. Those of you who lived there once would not recognize the halls -- they've gutted and renovated it into an entirely new office space. My dad gets a cubicle at one end of the 4th floor, where the ceiling is mostly exposed concrete and steel beams. I had a bacon cheeseburger at the Tombs for lunch and then I checked out the new addition to campus, the southwest quad. I took some pictures that will be online as soon as I can get them uploaded to the laptop. It looks good from the outside, and architecturally fits in with New South and Village C. I couldn't get inside, of course, so I can't speak for what the dorm rooms themselves look like, but it's a quiet corner of campus with a brand-new two-level dining hall. Apparently the students walk up Tondorf Drive (the road behind Harbin and Village C) to classes on the upper part of campus, instead of climbing the Village C steps and walking through Red Square. And they trip on the stairs in the cafeteria while carrying their food from one level to the other looking for friends. Now I'm sitting in the Leavey Center lounge surfing wirelessly on the campus network, which is blessedly open to the public. My firewall "shields" are up, however; there's no telling what manner of worms and viruses are buzzing around me. Speaking of which, MSNBC is reporting that another Blaster-like worm is about to spread. Just in time to foul stuff up with a hurricane coming. This should be a fun couple of days.

Gadgets to drool over

This article over at MSNBC.com explains why none of the cool stuff is out on the show floor at TECHXNY/PC Expo. Apparently the top manufacturers show their new toys to the press in closed evening events, and the public can't attend. I wouldn't be surprised if there's only one tech show in New York next year, and I'd be even more surprised if it were worth attending, even for free. For all my troubles today, I have magazines, a hat, and some sore legs. I would have liked one of those Siemens phones at the top of the page, though.

My old cell phone is dying (though it's been behaving for a few days) so I broke down and bought a new one at an AT&T store today. I got the Nokia 3595 mostly because it was free after a rebate. It's a GSM/GPRS phone, so I'm expecting to have some issues with the network now, but I'm hoping it will be a good choice. TDMA is on the way out, and GSM is the wave of the future. I'm on the hook with AT&T for another two years now, but I don't have any complaints about their service or the network so far. My old phone was the Nokia 3360, and the only reason I bought that one was for the infrared function that I never used. It cost me $30 and withstood almost two years of moderate use, so if the 3595 lasts as long, it'll be a good choice.

I'm coming to you live from PC Expo at the Javits Center, and you're not missing anything. This show gets smaller every year. Hardly anyone brought any hardware to the show, and the biggest crowds are at AMD's booth where they're giving away coffee and at a DLT booth with free popcorn. I'm writing this from the Olympus booth while watching a camera demo and borrowing Internet access from HP's booth next door. As usual, the best freebies are from the magazine racks out front. I've got plenty of reading material for my bus trip tomorrow. It's just sad that the vendor turnout and hardware selection is so sparse. This industry desperately needs an economic upswing.

And you thought your job was bad

Popular science has posted their list of The Worst Jobs in Science. The jobs themselves are terrible, disgusting, and just plain boring in some cases, but while you enjoy the descriptions, don't miss the icons that conveniently code the jobs for you. Where else would you find astronaut, barnyard masturbator, and stool sample analyzer on the same list?

This is how I spend my vacation?!

I am trying to figure out some formatting for the blog itself. I'm not ready to abandon this template entirely, so I'm just playing around with the links and trying to eliminate some of the whitespace at the top. The "what's Phil listening to" section is gone, since I've stopped using WinAmp in favor of the Quintessential Music Player and I haven't looked for a BlogAmp plug-in for it yet. The real problem is that I don't remember many of the tricks I learned back in the early days of HTML coding. Once upon a time, I designed web pages for a living, until it became the domain of people with visual arts skills instead of hard-core coders like myself. Futzing with Blogger templates involves much HTML manipulation, and I just don't have the time or inclination to worry about it. In the end, I'll probably just dump the template and use a new one.

ESPN.com - Page2 - The best time of your life

The Sports Guy's latest column is up on ESPN's Page 2, entitled "The best time of your life." He spent much more time playing dorm games his freshman year than I did, but it still brought back lots of memories. My freshman buddies and I played dorm room horse with a closet-mounted plastic hoop and foam ball, played catch in the hallways, and generally made fools of ourselves. The lacrosse players on my floor were far more destructive, and I vaguely remember some sort of contest involving cafeteria brownies and the hallway wall, ending with a chocolate mess of frosting and crumbs. Back then, it wasn't a good weekend for them unless it ended with the lounge locked up until they cleaned up the mess.

Those were the days.

I'm sitting in on Gene Weingarten's weekly chat on the Washington Post web site, and someone posted this link about badgers. I'm not sure what it's about, but it's funny in a stupid way. I'll be hearing the "mushroom, mushroom!" bit in my head the rest of the day.

Today was my fourth New York City Century bike ride. It was my second time riding the full 100 miles, and this year went much better than last year's 12-hour debacle that ended at dusk as two weary riders (James and myself) straggled into Central Park to find the organizers packing up all the food and supplies. This year, I started at 6:20 AM from the park, crossed the Brooklyn Bridge just after sunrise (the sun on the bridge and Lower Manhattan may have been the most beautiful thing I saw all day), and got to the first rest stop at Prospect Park by 7:30. Last year, James and I started an hour later, took our time all day, and paid for it with our late finish. This time, I covered the 20-mile distances between rest stops in about 1 1/2 hours each. I got to Canarsie Pier at 9:10, Alley Pond Park at 11:20, and Astoria Park at 1:10. It took me about an hour and 45 minutes to get to Van Cortlandt Park from Astoria, only 17 miles away, but that time was lengthened because of the slow crossing of the Triborough Bridge. Climbing and descending the bridge path's stairs and negotiating the narrow path took about 30 minutes, but it was a good relaxing start to that leg of the ride. Last year, the route in the Bronx was longer, so leaving the Van Cortlandt Park rest stop we had 20 miles of bike paths and steep hills before we got back to Manhattan and a long coasting descent on Riverside Drive. This year, the organizers wisely eliminated about 9 miles of bike paths and changed the exit from the park so that we went straight to the Riverdale hills. After 90 miles, the hills weren't much fun, but they weren't as difficult as I remembered them from last year. My ride ended with a long coast down the east side of Manhattan, on the newly reopened Harlem River Greenway. When I pulled into Central Park at 5:05 PM (total ride time, including rests, was 10 hours 45 minutes) I had hoped that triumphant fanfares would play along 110th St. Unfortunately, the orchestra wasn't there, so I had to settle for music in my head instead. I hung around the finish for about 40 minutes, chatting with a few people I knew and enjoying a few more snacks. Eventually I realized that all good things must end, and I went home just before 6 PM.

Now my legs hurt, my ass is sore, and I'm sure I'll feel like crap tomorrow. But right now I'm still on an endorphin high that won't quit. I can't wait for next year's Century, and I'm seriously thinking about some long rides on Long Island in October. I'm definitely in for the Tour de Bronx this year; I had a great time on that ride two years ago.

Let's try using a title!

If I took the time to use all the Blogger features, this could be one heck of a blog. This time, I'm trying titles.

I've changed the domain pointer of www.fiveguysproductions.com to point to this blog, instead of my primary home page. There's not much there worth looking at anymore, and this is the page I want people to see. Now I need to fix my template to use the old link and put a link to my Webshots page on the side as well. Why am I writing this? Because I feel a need to update with only the most mundane information possible.

My friend Jessica has started her own blog. It's much more interesting than this one. Check it out, and tell her I sent you. Then tell me, because I'd love to know that someone other than me reads this thing.

This week's New Yorker has an article on the past, present, and future of New York City's water supply. In case I didn't have anything else to worry about (finances, blackouts, terrorist attacks), now I can add the water supply to my list. The two main water tunnels are so old and decrepit that they may be leaking or ready to break, but the shutoff mechanisms are so old there's no way to shut them off to check them. City water officials are afraid that if they shut off the supply to check the tunnels for leaks, they won't be able to open the tunnels again. And any sort of break or serious damage to either tunnel would mean that most of the city would be without water for several years. Yes, that's years, not days or a week or two. There's a third tunnel under construction, with modern valves and cutoffs, but it won't be ready until 2020 at the earliest. On the bright side, I was fascinated as always by the subterranean design of this city. There's almost as much complexity below ground as there is above it. And I think that it would be difficult for terrorists to damage something that far underground. I'll use my worrying energy to focus on more blackouts, subway disasters, and other airline-related incidents.

Last night we enjoyed Memphis' best barbeque for dinner. We had ribs, pulled pork, chicken, and baked beans from Corky's, via the magic of mail order. I supplied corn salad, and our friends who did most of the cooking also made macaroni and cheese and biscuits. And we had Corky's fudge pie for dessert. I ate way too much but it was impossible to hold back. Today we're taking it easy. It's raining, so I doubt we'll even go out for groceries. And it wouldn't feel like Monday if I didn't spend most of my day in front of the computer.

...and it looks like it works. Excellent.

This is a test entry from PocketBlog. It runs on my iPaq and should let me post and sync later.

With Mars at its closest to Earth in hundreds of years, a renewed interest in astronomy led me to Celestia, free software that lets you explore hundreds of stars, planets, asteroids, and more. My favorite feature is the "go to" button that takes you on a trip to your heavenly destination, flying at many times the speed of light to get there. My only regret is that I live in stargazing-unfriendly Manhattan, and that even if the lights were turned off again (please, no more blackouts!), there are still too many tall buildings between me and the western horizon for me to be able to see Mars. I missed Halley's Comet in 1986, so this one is no big tragedy for me. (That time, it was my own ineptness: I looked for several weeks, but either I was looking in the wrong part of the sky or the moon obscured it, because I never did see that comet. Thanks a lot, Odyssey Magazine.)

Fans of The Daily Show will recognize the characters at this web site from a recent re-airing of a Mo Rocca interview. Don't miss the "about" page with the complete display of posters in the ad campaign. My favorite is "Transmission." I can't believe these posters are actually visible around San Francisco, or that people thought that the campaign would be effective. I look forward to the cartoons featuring the characters in the posters. I'd say more but I like to keep this blog PG-13 so you'll have to click on the link to learn more.

On Wednesday we got our PVR cable box from Time Warner. It hasn't changed our lives yet, but we're getting there. So far we've recorded episodes of the Simpsons, Futurama, some soaps, and a few of the Adult Swim shows on Cartoon Network. I love the ability to pause and rewind live TV programs whenever I miss a line of dialogue or action. And the best part is the price: $7.95 on top of the digital cable charges, no equipment fees. So instead of buying a TiVo and figuring out how to wire it into my system, I got a box from Time Warner that does almost all of the same functions, for much less money. The only thing it doesn't do is let you record any program featuring any actor or genre you like. But I can live without the collected works of William Shatner collecting on my box's hard drive.

Now that the power is back (for now? I hope it stays on!), I thought you might want to hear what happened to me, and later, us.

Yesterday afternoon, I was at my desk, enjoying a frappuccino from the Starbucks in my building's lobby, when the overhead lights went out. The computers and lights in our cubicles stayed on, so at first we thought someone had just turned off the lights in the computer room (there are light switches for our office outside in the computer room itself). Then I noticed that the large A/C units in the room were off as well. Our desks, PCs, and servers are all on a large battery backup system, that's why they stayed on. Maybe it was just our room, I thought. No, the rest of the floor was off too. Then came the announcement from the building management that the power was off in the entire building. Immediately, I packed up my laptop and grabbed my cell phone and Blackberry off my desk. If we were about to evacuate, I wanted to have everything with me. I was also thanking God that I hadn't waited a few more minutes to get my coffee, or else I could have been stuck in the elevator.

Then my boss told us to start shutting off the file servers gracefully, so that the battery system could stay up longer. For the next two hours, we shut down servers, figured out what we wanted to leave running as long as possible, and I watched the local news over the Internet. Our Internet connections and firewalls were still up, so as long as I didn't have anything important to do, I relayed news to others. The biggest debate was between marketing people and our web site management group, about what message to put on the firm web site and how to get it there.

Finally, around 6:15, my boss announced that we had done all we could and that we were leaving. We raided the cafeteria for water and snacks: I took a few bananas, some almonds, and water bottles. One guy loaded up his duffel bag with all sorts of junk before my boss told him to stop. Damn looters. :) We walked down to the 19th floor where someone offered us a ride on the freight elevator the rest of the way. The elevator got us to the 5th floor and stopped there, so we walked the rest of the way down.

So it was about 6:30 when I set off with David, who lives at 1st and 64th, about 24 blocks south of me, and Hazem, who was the looter I mentioned before. In addition to the food, he also carried his laptop and his smelly gym clothes in his bag. I kept cursing myself for hauling my own laptop with me, but guess what I'm e-mailing you from now? Anyway, we walked up Broadway to City Hall, then went up Center Street past the courthouses, to Lafayette Street, to Fourth Avenue, to Park Avenue at 14th Street. Along the way we kept trying to call our wives on our cell phones, to no avail. Hazem's Blackberry/cell phone combo device died on him, so he kept stopping to find paper clips or other pointy objects with which to poke its tiny "reset" switch. We passed a massive crowd heading for the Brooklyn Bridge, lots of people walking in both directions, and all sorts of signs of New Yorkers helping each other out. One mission near Canal Street moved its food service outside and gave dinner to anyone who wanted it. Lines at payphones and sidewalk vendors were orderly, and the bars were crowded with people who either gave up walking home or lived in the area.

Around 14th St. Hazem stopped at a payphone to try and call his cell phone provider for help. David and I left him there; David said he was slowing us down with his huge bag. At 23rd St. we turned and headed east to 1st Avenue. By now the sidewalk traffic was mostly moving north and the car traffic was severely backed up, with everyone trying to get to the Queensboro Bridge to Queens or further uptown. At a few intersections, regular folks helped the cops direct traffic. Past the Bridge at 60th Street the car traffic almost disappeared, and with no streetlights, it was extremely dark. But there were still plenty of people on the streets, and most of the restaurants were open by candlelight, so we were able to find our way. David went home and I was on my own for the last 25 blocks. My pocket flashlight showed me the way, especially up the dark stairs to my apartment. Liz was just fine when I got there, though she was a little scared and a lot lonely, with just the cats for company. I got home at 9:10, about 2 hours and 45 minutes after I left my office. Today, my legs and back are sore, but not excessively so. I may forego a big bike ride this weekend, though.

We spent the rest of the evening trying to keep cool and listening to the party outside in front of the bar downstairs. Around 11:30, for me much earlier than usual, we blew out the only candle we had and went to bed.

Partly because of the heat, and because of the situation, I slept for a long time, but I kept dreaming of the power coming back on when we woke up. Unfortunately, it wasn't. We took cold showers and ate energy bars for breakfast, not daring to open the fridge to see how the food was doing. About 11:30 we ventured out. While lots of businesses were closed, many others were open, including grocery stores and delis. Heading south down Lexington Avenue, we were about to turn and head for Central Park when I noticed that the stoplights were on a few blocks down. Around 75th Street, the power was on, so we stopped in a store to get an extra flashlight, another candle, and a transistor radio. For me, the worst part of the situation wasn't the lack of power, it was the lack of communication. The last news reports I'd heard were at 6 PM the night before, and waking up I had no idea if the power problems were getting better or worse. We found a pizza restaurant on 2nd Avenue that was serving everything but pizza, so we had lunch there. (Apparently the pizza oven chefs hadn't made it to Manhattan yet.) After lunch, finding no other place with power and room for us to sit down, we went home, around 2:30 PM. We still had no power, so we napped, listened to news reports, and read. Finally, a few minutes before 6 PM, I heard a few beeps and buzzes, and saw the LED panels on our electronics light up. On the street, people cheered and cars honked as lights went on in the restaurants and stores.

Life will get back to normal in short order. Unless I hear otherwise, I'm supposed to be at work tomorrow morning at 7 AM to turn the computers back on. Hopefully I won't be there long and I can try to enjoy the rest of the weekend. Our cell phones are working again, but circuits are still busy. If you left me a message, I'll check it when I can.

The new Led Zeppelin album is incredible. It sounds like Zep is playing a concert at my desk. I loved the BBC Sessions album from a few years back; I think I've found its replacement in my CD/MP3 rotation.

On the return flight from Frankfurt I watched "Down With Love" which was a charming romantic comedy, and a few minutes of the end of "X2." Then, to keep my good mood going, I broke out the laptop and watched the director's cut of "Almost Famous." That's still one of my favorite movies of all time, and it always makes me smile and cry at the same time. Yes, I admit I get a little broken up watching it. Maybe the plane was dusty. This time around, I really liked the kid from "Freaks and Geeks" and "Undeclared" who plays the rabid Zeppelin fan. I hadn't noticed before, but he's wearing a shirt that reads "To be a rock and not the road" on the front and "Have you seen the bridge?" on the back. How Zep-fan geeky is that? I want that shirt.

We spent all day Sunday in the office working, finishing up the bits of work we didn't do on Saturday. By 7 PM we were all done, so we went to a restaurant on the other side of the river for dinner. It's been extremely hot here for the past few days, and though our table was inside, the restaurant had large doors to the patio wide open and our table was just inside the door. So we sweated through a delicious meal. I had sea bass over orange-ginger risotto and a raspberry mousse with mango ice cream for dessert. I enjoyed playing "name that tune" while listening to the pianist: he played continuously for about 45 minutes at a time, with everything from old jazz standards to Gershwin to "Strangers in Paradise" to Paul Simon's "The Boxer."

I'm back in the office again today, but there's not too much for me to do. At lunch I'm planning to buy some chocolate to take home, and I might take the tourist elevator to the top of the Main Tower to take some pictures. I uploaded a few more pictures last night, and I'll put more up today.

They have all these little cars here that look like go-karts or bumper cars. I can't believe how popular they are. The "SMART" car looks small enough that I could drive it into my hotel room and pack it in my carry-on bag. There's a sports car convertible version that looks slightly better, but I don't think I'd buy one. The "KA" is just ugly. There are few SUVs on the roads; in fact, I'm not sure I've seen one, but my colleague here says that he has seen a BMW version. There's nothing like the Lincoln Navigator or Ford Excursion here. But they do have plenty of bikes. There are on-street bike lanes, and on the busy streets, bikes share the sidewalk with pedestrians. I keep expecting to be run over by a cyclist, but they go slowly enough that there aren't any accidents. There are also these rent-a-bikes parked every so often on the sidewalks. You use your cell phone (also called "handy" over here) to call the number printed on the bike (or or send an SMS message, we're not sure), and give them the serial number printed on the bike lock. You get an unlock code in response, and the bike is yours for however long you need it. When you're done, you lock it up again, and I suppose you call back to let them know where you left it. The charges could go to your credit card, but I bet they put them on your cell phone bill. Anyway, pictures of some of the cars and the bike should be available at my Webshots URL (see below) by the time you read this.

I'm ready to go home. I like traveling, but I want to sleep in my own bed again and do my own cooking. Besides, the relaxed schedule of the office here and the convenience of staying in a hotel less than five minutes from the office is too soft. It doesn't feel like I'm actually working while I'm here. And all the rich food is undoing the good work I've put in on my bike and in the gym. Getting back to New York will put my whole system back in order, and I'm looking forward to that. And, of course, I miss Liz and the cats. They're the best reason for wanting to go home.