Monday - 22 May 2000
Day 6 and 7 was Saturday and Sunday of our trip.
Vacation Day 6, 10:00 a.m. My wife has never been to Sea World so we figure we'll spend most of the day here. As you come in the gate, they print out a map with a suggested itinerary based on the time of day. This helps you to see as much as possible in as little time as possible. Even then, plan on spending at least four to five hours here. And bring the suntan lotion as all of the venues are open air.
Sea World opened in 1964 with a few shows and salt water aquariums. It was envisioned and planned by four UCLA fraternity brothers. However, it is now owned by the Busch Entertainment Corporation (which is why you can buy Bud beer ((whassuuuppp!!!)) and see Clydesdale horses here). The perimeter of the park is about a mile-and-a-half around. And about 2,300 employees (during the summer) are employed within.
The first stop was Shamu the Killer Whale. By the way, unless you like getting wet, do not sit in the first 15 or 20 rows at any of the venues. It swims. It splashes water on every one. See the live killer whale with the trainer on its back.
Next up was the Dolphin Discovery show. It's a relatively short, fast-paced show, providing a showcase of behaviors such as tailwalks, spinning jumps, and backflips. Again, plan to get wet.
Finally, the "Fools with Tools" show with that that zany sea lion duo of Clyde and Seamore and their playful pinniped friends. And as always, plan to get wet.
Lunch was at the Shipwreck Cafe, located strangely enough, near the Shipwreck Rapids ride (yes, you know what's coming next - plan to get wet). Just burgers for both of us. Lines were long and prices high.
Thus fortified, we push on to the "Wild Arctic" ride. This starts with a simulated ride on a helicopter flying over the arctic ice. Do not eat lunch and then go on this ride. You have been warned. After the quick ride, you exit into the polar bear area and get to see them paddling around in the water.
Pushing onward and upward, we went on the Southwest Airlines Sky Tower ride. This slowly rotating cylinder, with 360° views of the park, rises to the top of its 320-ft (98 m) tower and back down in about five or so minutes. A good way to see the park and its surrounding areas.
And then finally, to the Sky Ride (gondolas). They ride a 1/4 mile (0.4 km) span at a height of 90 ft above the bay. Very invigorating on a cool, windy day. Just don't fall out, or...right again, plan to get wet.
4:00 p.m. Time to say goodbye to Sea World and start thinking about where to eat dinner.
7:00 p.m. We tried going to a fish restaurant right on the wharf but, this being Saturday night, the wait is at least one hour. So we end up going to Marie Callenders instead. The special is fish and chips. Which is just what we wanted and is what we have. Fresh Alaskan fish (don't ask me what kind). Comes with soup or salad (I had the "hearty vegetable soup") and their famous corn bread. Yes! There used to be a franchise in Honolulu but it closed years ago. Yum.
Back to the condo for some TV and then to bed.
Vacation Day 7, 10:00 a.m. Sea Port Village is a 14-acre (5.7 hectares) waterfront shopping, dining and entertainment complex, recreating a harbor-side setting of a century ago. In other words, it's a tourist trap. Notwithstanding that, SWCNBD buys a couple of coffee cups from the Muggery.
1:00 p.m. We move on to the Hotel del Coronado for more sightseeing and shopping. The hotel is a National Historic Landmark, and has a rich and colorful heritage. From Marilyn Monroe to Charles Lindbergh, from state dinners to the ghost of Kate Morgan, The Del is a treasure with over 112 years of stories to tell. We spend about a USD $100 and then go home to nap and think of what to have for dinner.
6:00 p.m. We decide to get some take-out from Boston Market. Since chicken is what they sell, chicken is what we buy. With side orders of cole slaw, mashed potatoes, and corn. Very delicious. But I wonder if McDonalds, which bought the company in December of last year, can keep the company afloat. I guess time will tell. But I wish we had one in Hawai'i (along with a Marie Callenders).
Tomorrow we drive back up to Los Angeles so we watch some TV and then turn-in.
***** Noon Update *****
Thanks to InfoWorld's Brian Livingston for his story ( here) on a new version of Win98Lite III that can enables you to remove parts of Windows that MS insists are integral to its operation (like IE 5). And using a product called 98EOS, to be released soon, an installation can be chopped down to only 16MB! That's right, instead of hogging 180MB for a typical Windows 98 installation, you can hack that down to only 16MB. Now, don't expect to be able to do everything the pig, I mean default, installation can do. But if you have a need to run lean and mean (can you imagine running Windows entirely from a RAM disk?), then this looks like the way to go. YMMV.
And this in from Daynoter Phil Hough regarding my "The Decline of MS" from last week:
----- Original Message -----
From: Phil Hough [phil4@compsoc.man.ac.uk]
To: Dan Seto
Sent: Friday, May 19, 2000 11:00 PM
Subject: MS in decline
"Hmmm. If true, this confirms what I've been thinking about MS lately."
I can't do anything buy agree. Their peak I reckon was the release of Windows 95. From my point if view, it was a revolution in usability, DirectX made amazing games possible, and DOS was removed from the users view. Since then the OS has got bigger and slower. And the actual usability improvement has been negligible.
Their move to rented software is just plain profiteering (like they don't already make enough money). It won't lead to anything better, the software won't be better, more bug free by any rate.
The idea of running it all over the internet stinks too. The internet is slow. MS's website already grinds, hardly showing off is it. And then theres the lack of "permanently on" broadband internetting. It may be "nearly here", but its not here yet.
"On the other hand, Linux is rising even more steeply than I thought possible six months ago. The coming of kernel version 2.4 may be the tsunami that drowns MS. But then again. Maybe not. YMMV."
I'm not sure that it's the kernel that is the problem. IMO the functionality in linux is almost enough already. The problem is still usability. Work is coming on in this area in leaps and bounds, it just needs to keep going, and soon people will be able to use linux without knowing about grep, tar, gzip, chmod, chown, ls, cd, du, ds and every other command line tool. Much like very few people know about DOS now.
Sure X removes the need to know... but getting things setup on linux is still a matter of editing text files here and there (the here and there is half the problem... finding the blighters is a right pain).
If linux get the usability sorted to the extent of Windows, then there will be a battle on. Especially if Windoze is rented, and linux is free.
my 2p worth.
ATB.
Phil
____________________________________________________________________________ Phil Hough - 4th Year Computer Scientist Out of memory. E-mail: phil4@compsoc.man.ac.uk We wish to hold the whole sky, Phone: xxxxx xxxxxx But we never will. WWW: http://www2.cs.man.ac.uk/~houghp6
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Tuesday - 23 May 2000
Vacation Day 8, 10:00 a.m. We're packed-up and on Interstate 5 heading north to Los Angeles. This route is a bit more scenic but also has a lot more traffic. There is also a US Immigration stop which slows things down (don't ask me why there is an immigration stop in the middle of the highway north of San Diego). They also have these neat street signs which have a picture of a family running across the highway. We think this is a rather interesting commentary but do not see any such families.
The plan is to stay overnight at the Hacienda Hotel near LAX and then catch an afternoon flight to Las Vegas tomorrow. We get to the hotel at about 12:30 p.m. The room is not made up yet but they tell us it will be by 1:00 p.m. So we wander across the street for lunch. During lunch we decide to return our rent-a-car and so head on over and drop it off. We then have to use their shuttle to go to LAX (since they don't go to the hotel and the hotel doesn't do there) whereupon we catch the hotel's shuttle back to the hotel.
2:30 p.m. We are a little tired and grumpy from the long drive and running around dropping off the car. Fortunately, the hotel had given us the keys to the room earlier so we go straight up. When we get to the room, we find that the room is still not done. This will not do. So we call down to the desk and they tell us they will give us another room. Ten minutes later a bell boy comes up and gives us the keys to said room. We go up two floors and find it. And a good one it is. I guess they upgraded us since we were inconvenienced by not having the room ready. So they gave us a much, much larger room, which lifts our spirits to no end. Plenty of space, nice view. Can't ask for more than that.
Once settled in, we decide to call United Airlines to confirm our flight to Las Vegas. All is well on that front (although there will be more about this later) so we spend the balance of the day puttering around the hotel doing nothing much.
We check out and hop on the hotel's shuttle to LAX. The lines at the United Shuttle check-in stretches are far as the eye can see. Well, OK. Maybe not that far. But surely as far as the crow flies. Hmmm. Well, maybe not. But there is a LOT of people lined-up. Fortunately, we are early so we are not that irritated.
12:30 p.m. The plane moves away from the jetway 15 minutes late. Then we wait our place in line for take-off. this takes another 15 minutes of waiting. Once we are in the air the flight is smooth until we begin to descend into Las Vegas. Then it gets a bit bumpy.
As soon as well exit the airport to get a cab we find out why it was so bumpy. The wind is blowing at a steady 30 mph with gusts to 50 or 60 (we later find out by watching the evening news). And, the temperature is a nice °F. Not. The heat is tremendous. But then, it's a dry heat. Or so everyone says (as if this somehow makes it more bearable).
2:30 p.m. We get checked-in to the New York-New York (NY2X) hotel without problems and go up to our room to rest. Unfortunately, part of the hotel's attractions is a roller coaster (just like Coney Island!). And noisy it is. But I digress.
The hotel consists of 12 towers with a little over 2,000 rooms total. We are in the Empire State Building which faces the intersection of Las Vegas Blvd. ("the Strip") and Tropicana. To our right is the Excalibur, across the street to our left is the MGM Grand, and to it's right, the Tropicana. The room is nice, but not as impressive as the room we had at the Luxor during our last drip in October. And it's a pretty long walk from the elevators to the room. But still, it's OK.
7:30 p.m. We head off downtown to the California Hotel to see where most people from Hawai'i stay. When we enter, it's like we've been transported back home. Everyone looks (Asian) and dresses like us (informally). We take a quick walk through then head out towards Freemont Street to see the Freemont Street Experience.
If you haven't seen this attraction, it's kind of difficult to explain. You can follow the link above but essentially, a four-block length of Freemont Street was turned into a pedestrian mall. Then it was covered with a canopy set 90-ft above the ground. This canopy is laced with 2.1 million colored lights backed by speakers with 540,000 watts of power. The lights are controlled by 36 computers which create images that appear to move down the length of the mall in time to music. The show is free and lasts a little over five minutes. If you haven't seen it yet, by all means to do so.
After the show, we quickly grab a cab and head back to the hotel. It being a long day, we watch some TV and then go to sleep.
Mars Bars. For those of you who just don't have enough pics of the planet Mars, there is a page with over 20,000 images of the red planet. The images were taken by the Mars Global Surveyor from September 1997 through August 1999. See the page here.
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Hump Day Wednesday - 24 May 2000
Vacation Day 10, 10:00 a.m. Today is the last full day of our vacation (we leave tomorrow) so this is a shopping day for omiyagi (a Japanese term referring to the obligation to bring a gift when returning from a trip or visiting a friend's a home). We go across the street to the Ethel M Chocolates store. Ethel M is a favorite gift to bring back from Las Vegas so we buy about USD $100 worth for family and friends at work.
Next door is the M&M Candy Store (just what we need, more candy). One of my wife's friends loves M&Ms so we buy some in a color that is sold only at this store.
A little further up the street is the Coca Cola store. My wife loves the Coke Polar Bears so she stocks up on t-shirts, hats, mugs, stuff bears, magnets, pens, etc. We think we've helped the economy of Las Vegas enough and head back to the room to rest.
1:00 p.m. We call United Airlines to confirm our flight from Las Vegas to LAX and then on to Honolulu. We find that both flights have been canceled. Hmmm. A major bother. We learn later than the United pilots are refusing to work overtime (which sounds reasonable to me. Nothing like a tired pilot to mkae a mistaike). But management is having nothing of this and is canceling flights whenever insufficient pilots are available rather than hire sufficient pilots. We are able to book new flights but we will be in separate (non-adjoining, Bo) seats on the trip from Las Vegas to LAX and there will be a three hour lay-over in L.A. Big Sigh. We've really tried to be good troopers and stay loyal to United. But they keep doing this to us. And it's not like we're flying the cheapest fares either.
2:30 p.m. We are really bummed out about the problems with our flights but we go down to the casino anyway to contribute some money to them. Neither of us are big time gamblers so we each take USD $20 and play the slot machines for about an hour. Once the money is gone, we go back to the room to rest for dinner.
6:00 p.m. Dinner is at a restaurant in the hotel called Gallegher's Steak House. This is supposed to be New York City's original steakhouse since 1927 and offers USDA prime, dry-aged beef. So of course beef is what we order. I have the Cowboy Rib-eye steak (huge and flavorful) and SWCNBD has the prime rib (huge and flavorful). We share sides of onion rings, potato fries, and baked potatoes. After dinner is shopping at the hotel's logo shop to buy some polo shirts and hats. Then back to the room to start packing for tomorrow's long journey back home.
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Thursday - 25 May 2000
Vacation Day 11, 7:30 a.m. We decide to have room service rather than to go downstairs. My usual mushrooms and spinach omelet and pancakes for her.
9:30 a.m. We try to use the TV based checkout system but it seems to be overloaded. It runs fine until we get to the confirmation of checkout when it says it could not complete the function. However, when I try to checkout again, its says no one is registered in this room. Sigh. This reminds me of the "JumboTron"-type screen outside one of the hotels we saw in October. The program that produces the display apparently died and all that was shown to everyone passing by was a MS NT dialogue box showing an error message. I'm sure that helped MS's stock prices.
10:00 a.m. The Bell boy comes to get the bags and meets us downstairs to hail a cab. Only, there aren't any (taxis, that is). They all appear to be at a computer convention called Networld+Interop. Or some such. The nerve. All those computer people taking all of the taxis. Luckily, an airport shuttle van pulls up and we take that instead. And they only charge US $2.50 per person (rather than $15 to $20 for a cab)!
10:30 a.m. As usual, United has the longest lines to check-in but we are early for our 12:30 flight so we don't mind. Post check-in, we take the mono-rail(?) to the terminal and find someplace (Ruby's 50's Diner) to have lunch (we share a hamburger since we don't like to travel while full).
12:30 p.m. Due to the cancelling of our earlier flight, we do not have adjoining seats. Bummer. But the flight into LAX is otherwise uneventful and our flight takes us almost directly over my sister's house in Colton. When we arrive at the terminal in L.A., we find that our flight to Honolulu is not listed on the Departures Monitor (yet?). Hmmm. Trying not to panic, and not to wander around the airport since we don't know what gate it will be leaving from (assuming there is a plane to leave) we decide to go to a gate at which one of two planes from Honolulu will be arriving.
3:00 p.m. The departures monitor finally lists our 5:15 p.m. flight to Honolulu. Only, it's at the other gate. Sigh. So we gather up our stuff and trudge over to the correct gate to wait.
5:30 p.m. Wheels up and we are on our 5-hour flight home. The movie is HBO's "RKO 281." The semi-documentary style movie of the making of Citizen Kane. It had a few moments but I guess it's just filler to keep people occupied for a couple of hours. Dinner is a choice of stuffed chicken, mahi mahi fish, or ribs. We go for the fish. Unfortunately, even though all of the food is based on recipes from Honolulu's chef Sam Choy, he has nothing to do with the cooking of these dishes. And so the fish comes out extremely dry and tough when it should be moist and flaky. Oh well. What can one expect from airline food?
7:00 p.m. HST Touchdown. When the door opens we are greeted with the sweet smell of plumeria blossoms used in na lei. Plumeria is a long time favorite of local families in lei making because you can grow them in your yard without having to fuss over them. The second thing we feel is the humidity. It is very humid. Given we left Las Vegas where the humidity was less than 20%, Hawaii's 80% humidity will take a little getting used to again. But still, we are home. Finally.
***** Noon Update *****
Speaking of SpamCop. As long as there are "free" email accounts that will mail to multiple recipients, there will be SPAM. But at least we can force them to create new accounts each time they do this rather than just using the same one.
To whit, I got two emails from ISPs today that shut down SPAM sites out of their domains (neither of which have free accounts as far as I know). And that gives me some small measure of satisfaction.
From: Bellsouth.Net ABUSE
To: Dan Seto
Subject: MailID: 1022902 RE: [SpamCop:216.77.217.211,id:6799606]
Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 08:08:33 -0400 (EDT)In accordance with BellSouth Internet Service's Acceptable Use Policy, this customers BellSouth Internet Service account will be cancelled. Because it will take a day or two to insure that all offending communications are removed from our servers, you may receive additional e-mails during this time period. We apologize for that inconvenience but be assured that those communications will stop shortly.
From: Net Abuse Team psi.com
To: Dan Seto
Subject: Re: [SpamCop:38.37.11.43,id:6799558]
Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 15:55:31 -0400 (EDT)Please be advised that the account used to violate our Net-Abuse Policy has been disabled. If you receive any further correspondence from this source, please let us know.
Aloha!
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Aloha Friday - 26 May 2000
Delegating Responsibility. My wife is a Delegate, and I am an Alternate, to the State Democratic Party Convention this weekend. So I will be here until noon then off to the convention being held at the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel. I will not be back home until Sunday so don't expect responses to emails until late Sunday. To keep me busy until then, I've bought three books:
1. Burning City, Niven, Larry and Pournelle, Jerry, Pocket Books, March 2000, ISBN 0671036602.
2. Flags of Our Fathers, Bradley, James and Powers, Ron, Bantam Dell Publishing Group, May 2000, ISBN 0553111337.
3. John A. Burns: The Man and His Times, Boylan, Dan and Holmes, Michael T, University of Hawaii Press, April 2000, ISBN 0824822773.
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Burning City is part science fiction and part Greek-like epic describing a time that could have been. Set on Earth, 14,000 years ago in a period which Atlantis is no more and the magic in the world is disappearing. As Roland Green of Booklist says "...the co-authors' creativity is with them as they build a detailed world containing classical and Native American elements....another absorbing book from [Niven and Pournelle] and bodes well for yet more of their collaborations." Co-written by Daynoter Dr. Jerry Pournelle.
Flags of Our Fathers is the true story of the six men who raised the flag on the island of Iwo Jima during WWII, as told by the son of one of the six. I think Steven Ambrose says it best; "The best battle book I ever read. These stories, from the time the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima enlisted, their training, and the landing and subsequent struggle, fill me with awe."
John A. Burns: The Man and His Times will be of interest principally to people in Hawai'i. Burns was the most influential Governor to date. And as US Senator from Hawai'i, and Congressional Medal of Honor winner, Daniel K. Inouye put it;
More than any other man, Jack Burns created modern Hawaii. He provided returning World War II veterans like myself with inspiration, guidance, and the enduring message of the American dream: social and political equality for all.As a party leader, he made the Democratic Party into an instrument of that dream. As a delegate to Congress, he engineered statehood for Hawaii. As governor, he laid the foundations for a modern state.
He has long deserved a scholarly biography. And in John A. Burns: The Man and His Times he finally has one. It will remind my generation of his wisdom (and his idiosyncrasies), and it will help build a legacy for our children and grandchildren."
Monday is a national holiday (Memorial Day) so I will be off. In fact, I'm taking Tuesday off also. So expect posts to be later than usual. But while I'm gone, please take a look at this - Freedom's Worth.
***** Noon Update *****
I try to read all of the Daynoters each day during the week. Sometimes I make it and sometimes I don't. Today's round-up finds stuff that has nothing specifically to do with computers but is nonetheless very interesting. Check out Robert Bruce Thompson's site ( here) for an email about problems with using a radar gun to determine the speed of a tennis ball in flight.
Over at Brian Bilbrey's site ( here), follow the link to the Rat Bastard from Hell (or go directly to it here RBOH). Okay, it's actually just about Rat Bastards but I like the RBOH term better. So that's my story and I'm sticking with it.
Then Bo Leuf posted his Thursday views ( here) on Friday. And glad I am (that he posted it, not that it took until Friday). He has a semi-rant on music licensing fees and why businesses have to pay them. Even if only listening to music by yourself in your place of business. We have the same problem here in Hawai'i and while I don't want to steal food from the mouths of artists, I think it's a bit much to have to pay a fee to listen to music, either on the radio, or from a CD that you bought, while at work. The only entity that profits from this is the licensing company. I seriously doubt the artist gets anything. And if they do, it's probably pennies on the dollar.
And then to Dan Bowman's story (here) of building castles in the sand. Castles with ablative armor on them, that is. Hmmm. Remember to leave room for the surface to air missiles. And speaking of radar, have an area for the Raytheon Theater High Altitude Area Defense Radar ( THAAD). Lets you know when the Bad Guys are on the way.
And then there's...Hmmm. I seem to be running out of room (and time) so feel free to checkout all of the Daynoters (and Significant Others sites also!). A good time will be had by all if you do.
Have a great weekend everyone!
Aloha!
© 2000 Daniel K. Seto. All rights reserved.