This Boy Elroy

A System Comfortable With Zero-Accountability

I could not believe it when I read this article in the Dallas Observer Blog, Unfair Park. Flight attendants hear strange rattling and ripping after a plane takes off from DFW en route to Paris, pilots and dispatch both agree that it's okay to fly even after flight attendants insist that something didn't sound right. Upon arriving in Paris it appears that a piece of the fuselage had ripped off on take off. What the fuck!?

Why did the pilots think the noise and rattling was a-ok but the flight attendants didnt? Did anyone in the control tower at DFW not see a piece of the plane fall off of it on take off?

American Airlines has the oldest fleet in the nation with an average aircraft age of 14 years. I must admit, sometimes I get on a plane in Dallas and based on how some of AA's aircraft look I wonder if we're going to make it. What's even worse is that this story is nowhere to be found in mainstream media even though it deserves attention.

I find it terribly ironic that passengers are subject to vigilant security screening but lately there have been signs that the mechanical inspection of our aircraft in this country takes a back seat. I think the terrorists are the least of our problems right now.

Makes me think of a quote from the recent Iron Man movie: "...I had become part of a system that is comfortable with zero-accountability."

AA Flight 48, From DFW to Paris, Sounds Like One Hell of a trip

Phoenix Day 1

It appears that in the ten years since I lived in Scottsdale it has become the second OC. Working out at the golds gym in the 'dale was both titillating and revolting at the same time. Beautiful looking people but when you hear what they're speaking about they instantly become revolting. Not to mention the largest collection of white men pretending to be black men pretending to be white.

It was fun seeing the family again. My parents are like old hippies and my nieces are precocious and talk more video game than I do. They're pretty rad.

Darin and Jimmi took me out for a great night on the town. The Phoenix bars are so refreshing compared to Dallas, there's an interesting mix of people in confront to the Ralph Lauren homogenity of Dallas. The highlights of the evening were when Jimmi told me and Darin that he can selectively poop out of one of his two rectums and the other was when a stranger put his hand up Darin's shorts, took a swipe of his balls with his hand and then sniffed it and shared it with other bar patrons. Good times!

L'Alamo D'Etre

I don't remember how I found this but here it is.

What is it? Well, in the U.S. (Dorothée has told me that it's not like this in France) when you learn the passé composé (past tense) you will inevitably learn La Maison D'etre. La Masion D'Etre is a representation to learn all of the verbs that use "etre" as the auxiliary verb in the past tense. The idea is that all of the verbs are verbs that you do in or in relation to a house.

Someone at the University of Texas has put a Texas slant on the trick and created L'Alamo D'Etre. I like the armadillos, especially the one that's resting with a beret. I'm assuming the alien is there because of the Marfa lights.

tex's french grammar

Computer History Museum

I mentioned in my previous post that Dan and I went to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View last Friday. I really liked this place because #1 its FREE and they have an amazing collection of antiquated computers. My only complaint is that the collection of personal computers are on shelves and some of them are too high up on a shelf to observe, I hope they fix that. If you're a nerd like me then this is definitely a place you need to visit the next time you're in the bay area.

This is a 10MB hard drive from yesteryear. I'm 5'8'' and the entire assembly came up to my waist. Amazing when you think about how you can get an iPod Nano with a 6GB hard drive that fits in the palm of your hand.

This is the SAGE computer. It was a military computer used to track US airspace. One of the cool features about this computer is that it used a ray gun to interface with the radar screen. This computer stored data on vacuum tubes, interestingly enough vacuum tubes were no longer manufactured in the US after the sixties so the military bought replacement tubes (vacuum tubes were very unreliable and had to be replaced often) from what was then Czechoslovakia, which was part of the Soviet Bloc. We were buying parts from the Soviets to defend ourselves from the Soviets, nothing's changed.

First Google production server:

The Apple-I, the one that started it all.

Here I am with Apple-I.

And even before the Apple-I there was this computer made by Xerox. Xerox was one of the first companies to develop the GUI, the graphical user interface, which was a revolutionary breakthrough in personal and eventually business computing.

If you've ever seen the Showtime Movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley" there's a scene where the Xerox developers are showing their GUI to the execs. The execs are unimpressed at the end of the presentation and sarcastically state, "You want us to sell something called a mouse?" The movie then shows how the crew at Apple acquired Xerox's OS and thus Macintosh was born.

And here's the Macintosh with one of the first owners of a Macintosh, Dan!

Finally, a groovy computer that Nieman Marcus offered in 1969 to keep your recipes.

And I'm officially a nerd for posting this.

The rest of training, my weekend, and home.

After a week being away it's really great to be home. If you're a follower of my twitter you would have read that the excursion into San Francisco with the training group was an utter bust. I actually had reservations earlier in the week about participating but when they mentioned that dinner was in Sausalito I thought it might be worth it. The result proved that my initial trepidation was indeed valid. It's like they always said in the SAT prep courses, always trust your first instinct, it's usually the correct one. I won't bore you with my observations about middle american tourists, the trade deficit with China and the souvenier tchotchkie industry, why I think Pier 39 & Ghiradlli Sq. are insipid, or how it's better to serve no calamari than rubbery calamari.

The rest of the training on Thursday and Friday was absolutely mind numbing. I think I could have learned all I needed to learn in about five hours and gone home. The infinite wisdom of Alanis Morrisette was playing in my head - "You live, you learn."

My weekend was great! Once again, my friends in San Francisco played terrific hosts and gave me another enjoyable and memorable stay in the city. They keep doing this, and as a result I keep leaving a piece of my heart in the city. Hopefully, one day I'll be able to go back to get the pieces and stay for good. Here are the highlights:

Computer History Museum with Dan was awesome! We saw the ENIAC, a groovy Cray computer that was also a lovely bench, and an Apple I in it's wood frame signed by Woz! Also saw some cute geeky boys in the museum as well.

Good time out on Friday night at the Powerhouse, enjoyed jock strap clad go-go boys and the company of the charming Mr. Moby.

A great shoulder work out at Gold's on Market.

Post workout Sushi binge with Kalvin, JR, and Moby.

Attended a gaymer party with Moby in a shithole apartment covered in cat hair from floor to cieling occupied by the real life version of the comic book nerd man from the Simpsons. Left the party feeling like I was not such a geek after all and got a boy's Wii code.

Saw Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix with and ran into a long-lost friend from university after the movie.

Watching X-Tube videos with Kalvin and JR on Sunday morning over a bowl of strawberry yogurt with hemp seed.

Perusing sequined - Golden Girl-esque gowns and antiquated boy scout uniforms at a thrift store in the Mission with Kalvin and his friend Drew.

Yummy dim sum with JR, Chris, Drew, and Moby in SoMa before heading to the airport before returning home.

Making Myself At Home

I'm in San Jose for a week's worth of training for a super neat-o new machine that we just got at work. I've only traveled twice before for work since I started working after graduation university. The last time I had this kind of training I was stuck in the woods of Massachusetts, no car, eating Domino's delivery too many times than I care to admit.

This time I mustered up the courage to ask work to pay for a rental car. It's was a gamble seeing how expensive it is for a week but since I seldom travel I figured they would go for it. Well, after a few questions asking why I needed a car, and explanations of how the only thing nearby the hotel is The Great Mall of the Bay Area (One of those Mills malls, where clothes go to die. VOMIT!) and the food options consisted of Panda Express and Hot Dog On A Stick, I got the car!

I've been putting the Kia to good use. Instead of wallowing around my hotel room like a beached business traveler I have been making myself as much at home as possible. After I got into my room I Googled Gold's Gym, found one down the street, signed up for a week membership, and had a great work out. Now I won't be grumpy about losing a week at the gym, perfect! I also did some grocery shopping at Safeway so I can have my usual snacks. So far, this is turning out to be a much better business trip than the last two times.

No, there will be no hot dog on a stick for this traveler, not this time, not ever.