Incredible! BART has finally reached San Francisco Airport. Well, not 100%. But it is so reasurring to see 6 years of beaurocratic boondoggles and outragious expenses finally pay off. It won't open officially to passengers until January (apparantly), but finally finally! Too bad I'm leaving before it opens. Oh well, at least when I visit San Francsico next year, I won't have to take a $40 cab ride! Bravo BART.

I'm all for high speed rail. But that's another long conversation. The state of Florida is valiently trying to build high speed service, but they have chosen somewhat 'unorthodox' methods of collecting opinions. It seems that troopers are flagging over people at random on I-4 to conduct surveys on people's opinions regarding High Speed Rail. In a state as car-oriented as FL, you know this is just going to irritate people and push large numbers to an anti-train stance. Maybe that's the point. [article here]

Here's a deep link. Well not really. That's just a hyperlink to an article on Wired's website, which is like linking to a magazine article. Why in the world would a publisher oppose such a link? After all, the more links there are to an article, the more people will be directed there and the more eyes see the advertisements on the publication's page.

This article concerns a court case which has ruled it illegal to 'deep link' which is a rather vague term that describes searching through a publishers content and then providing links to it.

This kind of legislation wrecks the very purpose of the internet. If you don't want people finding your articles, then put them behind a firewall. Ridiculous.

Just got photos from Dave's bachelor party at Big Bear Lake in Southern California! It was a riot of a time, and remarkably civilzed for a bachelor party, imaging kayaking instead of strippers, which frankly I consider a good choice! Click for full size image of the biggest bear we could find at Big Bear Lake, and here for more photos, some of a fairly dubious nature...

Craigslist is truely amazing... I have a big pile of old CD jewel cases that I don't want because I bought one of those 'case logic' things for my CDs. So, what to do with hundreds of empty jewel cases? I posted "Massive Pile of CD Jewel Cases - FREE!!!" on Craigs list, and in 20 minutes I had 4 people begging for them. 20 minutes! And a guy came by this morning before work and took the whole box! It's amazing!

As promised, the photo montage. As we ascended Mt. Tam on Saturday we were rather impressed by the incredibal vista of rolling fog coming in from the ocean. It eventually overcame our campsite, soaking everything in mist and chill. But prior to sundown it made a lovely site. Here are three photos:

Had a nice time hiking and camping with Mike this weekend, culminating in raucus debauchery at the Tourist Club on Mt. Tam.

We drove to Mill Valley, then hiked to the PanToll Ranger station, set up our tent and then climbed to the top of Mt. Tam. There is a massive ruin up there from some long forgotten military installation. Not quite the picturesqe mountain top one expects.

The fog rolled onto the mountatin in it's typically dramatic fashion, and created a rainstorm beneath the trees. We woke up a bit wet and opted to take the bus down the mountain rather than hike through the still dripping forest. Then we found ourselves at the legendary Tourist Club overlooking the top of Muir Woods. It was a riot and much beer was had, along with Sausages and leiderhosen wearing dancers pranced about. They have three parties a year, Junefest, Summerfest, and of course, Oktoberfest. I recommend checking 'em out!

Yes! I finally worked out the bug and commenting works. Now the thousands of people who come here daily can leave their comments behind! I still have to make the comments section look nice, but at least it works. By the way, the problem was a totally careless mistake on my part. Very retarded. Gotta be mindfull of even the smallest details when working with scritps...

Vicente Fox wants to build a massive new airport outside Mexico City to replace the dilapidated and overcrowded current one. At first I was surprised to hear the protests of people who's land would be bought for the airport. After all, if you're a dirt poor peasant, what could be better that a massive government land buy-out? But the people say they won't move at any price. That impresses me. What kind of life could these people live with a few thousand dollars each? Most would move to the city, and though a few might manage to do something new, most would probably just fall into the slums, and they realize this. Unlike the USA, Mexico seems to respond to semi-volient revolts with hostage taking. I suppose that's can be a good and bad thing. At least they seem to be listening. It will be interesting to watch what sort of compromise gets worked out.
[Article]

Well, I can't see any major differences in any of the six redesigns of the WTC site. I suppose if I had to pick one, i'd pick this one, because it creates a big confined open space that would feel more like a shrine. I like the idea of something green that you can walk around and look down into, plus it includes the tallest building of the 6 plans, and I think the site needs at least one tall building. I was kinda hoping there would be something symetric built there to evokve the twin towers, but I guess that's not happening.

Ugh, what a disaster. The GMAT shouldn't be that hard, but I took a practice test and performed abysmally. I am demoralized. Well, gotta keep practicing. If I can do well, it should outweigh my lack of experience in other areas. Oh well, time for lunch.

The dentist always says to never use anything but a soft toothbrush. So why to they make the hard ones? Perhaps they are just for scrubbing toilets and bicycle chains.

For reasons unknown, the Alaska state capitol building is probably the least ornate of any state capitol. In fact it's the only one i've ever seen without a dome. Here's a photo. It's really a rather non-descript office building. Perhaps that's a good sign. Perhaps the government of Alaska is quite thrifty, or perhaps they are just not very imaginative.

ED NOTE :: Here are detailed description and photos of all the state capitols, so you can compare.

(Click each image for full size view)

	Our ascent of Mt. Juneau was most arduous, but as Brian deftly demonstrates, we took it all in stride. As it turns out, we lost the path shortly after the tree line and pretty much bushwacked the way to the top.
	When we got to the top, despite having trekked thourhg some very wild areas, we came upon a pile of debris and a rusted old bulldozer.
	On Friday, we went on an excellent Kayaking mission. We set forth in the rain from Auke Bay and went out to a small island about 2 miles off shore. The salmon were jumping out of the waters like dolphins in all directions. This photo was taken at our trimphant conquering of the islan.

Here are the photos. They are a bit disorganized, and some are sideways, but that's ok for just a quicky gallery.

Highlights of the trip:

1) The trip to Tracy Arm Fjoird
2) Climbing Mt. Juneau
3) Push Starting the Subaru

I can't wait to go back up there, it was truely fantastic!

Successfully returned from Alaska today, and I have many stories and photos. I'll get 'em up tommorow. I had to spend 7 hours at Sea-Tac airport this morning. I curled up in a corner and slept. I must have looked like a hobo with my head on a duffle and 7 days worth of beard. Needless to say I'm rather tired. Here's some photos that Dan took on his x-country journey.

Well, that's it for my big 2 day work week. I'm off to Juneau, Alaska tommorow morning! Will take may photos and have many stories for sure. Also Recursive Technology's website is finally done, at least the first edition. I still have to fix those darm commenting functions. Out.

Sorry that the comments are not working. I'll fix 'em later. I have been having one technical problem after another today. Why did microsoft come out with windows XP? There was clearly room to improve, but XP appears to accomplish nothing but take up more memory, cost more, and introduce more annoying cartoonish elements that do nothing but elicit frustration. Ugh... what a day. Thank god I only have a 2 day work week.