Don't Back Down

While we've nearly exhausted our tourist time, we did manage to fit in a nice day of driving by heading down the length of Whidbey Island, just North of Seattle.

But on the way, we had to visit the Fremont Troll, since it was so close and we barely missed it on our Duck ride the other day. Luckily it was indeed on our way, and we simply stopped for a few minutes and checked out the massive sculpture. Very cool.

Then we hit the road, and took I-5 towards Vancouver, veering off to Anacortes before we made it quite that far. Unfortunately, the ferries were not cooperating, so we decided to drive some more. We had hoped to take a ferry out towards the San Juan Islands, but it just was not to be on this day.

Read "Whidbey Island Adventure" »

After so much Seattle, we decided that it was time to get out of town for a bit. So we hopped a Victoria Clipper Ferry to Victoria, BC. The trip was uneventful - boring even. A few years ago, I took the Coho Ferry from Port Angeles, and it was much nicer. That is to say, the actual ferry was a lot worse. But it allowed people to go out on deck - a feature badly missing on the Clipper line.

Still, it was a relatively quick and uneventful crossing, taking about 2.5 hours - slightly more than is listed on their web site for the "premium" schedule.

Read "Victoria or Bust" »

Today we left the car in the garage and head out on foot. Our first stop was to Ride the Ducks of Seattle. This ride in a WWII-vintage amphibious duck took about an hour and a half through downtown Seattle and then into the water in Lake Union for a quick dip. Our captain, Cal Zone, was a great addition and made the trip well worth our while.

Next we strolled over to the Seattle Center, where we checked out the International Fountain (unfortunately no shows were underway) and then took the 40-odd second elevator ride to the Sky City Restaurant in the Space Needle.

Read "All About Seattle" »

So Warner Bros is releasing movie DVDs in China on the same day as the US movie arrives in theaters. The selling price of these DVDs? Just $2.75.

Now I realize that the average Chinese resident makes a lot less than their US counterpart - about $1000 a year isn't much, and $2.75 can add up if you're a movie buff. But $2.75 for a DVD? That's cheaper than the cost of the movie admission in the US, and suggests that the movie industry has done a whole lot of inflating in that price.

Read "How Much do Bootlegs Cost?" »

Walter Williams hits another home run with his latest article, Click It or Ticket. The article that shares the title with the popular US program to give tickets to those who don't wear their seatbelts hits that sweet spot that illustrates that we aren't living in a true free society, but a socialist one that cares more about the greater group than the rights of the individual.

Could an individual die if they don't wear their seat belt and are involved in a wrekc? Sure. Is that my business? No. If you drive and choose not to wear a seat belt, so be it. I have the same choice for me and my family. But to impose that will upon me for the simple sake of doing so? That's ridiculous. Even if you compare the "cost" of providing medical care to someone who doesn't wear a seat belt, you're on the wrong path as you've left out the cost of implementing such a program - take away that marketing budget and I'd suspect that the numbers would be just about the same.

So how about it, America? Why is it that we are governed to the lowest common denominator, and more specifically, that we've grown to stand for it?

After a couple of very fast-paced tourist days, we decided to tone things down a bit. To start things off, we slept in and had breakfast downstairs at a relaxed pace, instead of at the standard eat-and-run pace we had been keeping up previously.

Then we headed out and found our way to Gas Works Park (I was actually able to follow the directions this time). A beautiful day again, and the view across the lake was simply wonderful. Interestingly, there seemed to be fewer homeless people here than at the piers downtown. Perhaps this is an unwritten (or even a written) code someplace, but it seems that a more relaxed setting, with less noise, would be more conducive to living - and sleeping. But what do I know? Perhaps the lesser flow of foot traffic has its downside.

Read "More Relaxed Tourists" »

We started off the day with an early trip to the Hiram M. Chittenden (Ballard) Locks. The day started off wonderfully, with a clear morning and a bit of warmth to it. We even managed to see a salmon on the fish ladder and a boat come through the locks - very cool.

I then tried to find our way to Gas Works Park, but I couldn't follow directions, so I missed it. We'll try again today. So we then found our way down to the waterfront in Seattle. I don't remember quite so many people being there when we lived here. It was packed, even at 10am or so on a Sunday.

We picked up our tickets to the Tillicum Village Cruise and then wandered the piers for a little while, where we came across a cool gathering of classic boats sponsored by the Classic Yacht Association. After checking out several of them, we made our way back down to Pier 66 for the departure.

Read "More on the Northwest" »

Yesterday's flight to Seattle was relatively uneventful. While we took a United-branded flight, it was actually a USAirways gate and plane, staffed by USAirways employees. Still, other than departing about an hour-and-half late, the flight was okay.

What really got me was that they sold first-class upgrades for $150 each. We actually bought two of them, and that was okay. But what really ticks me off is that I have a stack of e-upgrades in my account, but even though there are free seats in first class, I can't use them because we didn't have the right kind of tickets. That's just stupid. The airline would rather extort customers for $300 than provide some sweet customer service. That's dumb.

Read "Seattle on my Mind" »

A while back, I talked about an encryption plugin for the Gaim instant-messaging platform. Today I noticed the Off-the-Record Messaging plugin for Gaim, that offers encryption, authentication, deniability and perfect forward secrecy. Cool!

This week has seen me doing an insane amount of work with Microsoft products, and specifically domain controllers, and I don't know if I would have made it through without Daniel Petri's articles at MCSEWorld. The articles are packed full of information, they get the job done and perhaps most importantly, they rank high in Google results, so they are easy to find. Excellent resource.

As I'm browsing the Tiger Direct catalog that came in the mail, a couple of things jump out at me. First, what seems like a good price on a computer system on the inside front cover. Just $299.99 after rebate. The small print? The rebate expires 5/31. I received the catalog in the mail yesterday. Oops. That ought to make it really difficult to get the rebate.

Read "Rebates and Free-Falling Prices" »

An email from Vonage today announces unlimited calling to Puerto Rico. Cool. I don't know anyone in Puerto Rico, but it's a nice feature to have. Also they will apparently be rolling out Enhanced 911 (E911) services to Bellsouth, SBC and Verizon customers by the fourth quarter. Very nice.

Just a reminder: If you're looking at trying Vonage, let me know and I'll send you a refer-a-friend email. If you sign up, I get 2 months free, and it doesn't cost you anything (other than the service, which you were going to get anyway). Unfortunately, I do have to send you an email for this - no direct linking, as with some other affiliates.