CUViper

I’m in Portland for an Intel software conference this week.  I’m speaking on Wednesday, but today and tomorrow I get to just soak it all up.  I can’t share any details on what I’m presenting, but I will share the nice view I have from the hotel:

I also got to have dinner with Chris and Tonya tonight, and their baby Claire.  Millie’s going to be so jealous when I teach Claire to say “Josh” first, but it hasn’t happened yet…

When I got back to the hotel, I found an amusing sight in the hallway:

My cell phone didn’t capture this one too well, but what we have here is a bucket of empty Newcastles on the left, and a bucket of untouched chocolate milks on the right.  Methinks someone had a good time…

Wedding #2: Dave and Amanda. This one was much more formal, which I think would make my mom happier. Me, I think I’ll want something in between. I’m definitely a casual guy, but for things like this I appreciate the tradition and rituals.

We flew up to Portland for this wedding, and I must say, if I may rant a little, I find the whole liquid ban on planes to be quite a sad thing. Sad because we’re all so willing to give up our freedoms, of course, but that’s not what I want to talk about. It’s sad because I can’t believe that it’s at all effective. No one searched my pockets for any hidden vials, and I pretty sure the security scanner can’t detect liquids.

Beep! Beep! Beep! Come with me sir — this here detector says that more than half of your body is water. Are you trying to blow something up?

It’s not protection or prevention — it’s pure reaction. It’s the addition of security so that some higher-ups can pat themselves on the back for a job well done. Or worse, it’s a desperate attempt to do something, because we don’t really know how to stop those who would do us harm.

I think terrorism is like cancer, and the only treatments we’ve figured out are chemotherapy and radiation therapy. We may be able to fight it off this way, but a lot will be damaged along the way. What we need, if it’s not too late, is to figure out a real strategy for prevention. A healthy lifestyle can greatly reduce your risk for cancer, and I’m willing to bet that the US wouldn’t be such a target of terrorism if we were better world citizens. Sometimes you get cancer anyway, and you have to be prepared to deal with that, but prevention goes a long way.

I’m sure I’m not the first person to look at it this way, but I hope that more people will realize that our current method is unmaintainable. And I believe that the folks at the TSA are genuinely trying to make our travels safer — they’re the doctors searching for the key to remission. It’s a monumental responsibility that I wouldn’t want on my shoulders. But the changes needed to actually solve the problem are much larger, and I hope that someday soon we can find that solution.

/rant

Over the weekend we drove up to Eugene for Amber and Aaron’s wedding. Millie went to high school with Amber, so that’s yet another making the leap. Then in a couple of weeks we’ll be going to another wedding, and I know of two more couples in Colorado that are getting married this year! I guess we’re just at that age. Maybe now Millie and I can make the excuse that we’re waiting for everyone’s wallets to recover so we can get better gifts.

Anyway, while the drive was exhausting, we had a fun weekend. We hung out with a lot of Millie’s old friends, went out to the Rock ‘n Rodeo, and of course went to the wedding and reception. Not really in that order, but you get the point. I’ve never seen a wedding reception with a fire juggler and a magician, so they definitely get props for that.

Oh, and I guess my grandparents were in Oregon near Eugene, and I didn’t realize it, so we missed an opportunity to visit them. Well, now we’ll just have to convince them to come visit us at our house.

Just when you thought you were lucky to get a post from me, here comes another one! And this one has pictures too!

Ben and Kelley invited us up to Lake Tahoe for the weekend, and we were happy to oblige. Neither of us had been up there before, and now I wonder why we waited so long. It feels a lot like Colorado — it’s even at a decent altitude! I tend to be a bit snooty when people mention “high altitude” that’s not even any higher than Denver, so it was nice to see that Tahoe is at about 6200 feet.

The lake itself is amazing — now I understand the “Keep Tahoo Blue” stickers you see everywhere. But just being up in some real mountains made me feel right at home again. It’s a bit of a drive, at about 4.5 hours, but we’ll definitely have to be going back there…

Better late than never, here are our pictures from our trip to Mexico! Be sure to click for the full album.

We had a really great time in Puerto Vallarta. We stayed at the the Dreams Resort, which was all-inclusive and had a private beach. I’m not much of a swimmer, but I really enjoyed going out into the ocean. The water was so warm that it might as well have been bath water!

One day we went out on a tour boat to see the Marietta Islands, where we got to go snorkeling to see tropical fish and coral. (Unfortunately we didn’t bring the camera that day.) It was crazy to see so many fish swimming right around me! The tour also took us to a “virgin” beach with great sand and big waves, and tide pools with a bunch of crabs. On the way back the crew opened up the bar and got everyone dancing (even me!), which was a lot of fun.

Another day we went on a canopy tour, which was basically a long series of ziplines, high up in the jungle canopy. We took a ride about an hour into the heart of Mexico riding in an truck that looked like an army transport or something. Then we rigged up, and started zipping around about 100 feet off the ground. The guides were explaining all of the vegetation and wildlife to us on the way, so it was even a bit educational.

My only negative about the trip is that Puerto Vallarta is such a tourist town. Everywhere you go people try to sell you souvenirs, and most things are still written in English. That’s good in a way, since I only know a few words in Spanish. But apart from paying for everything in pesos, the whole “different-country” aspect got a little lost. Maybe next time we can go to Mexico with someone who speaks Spanish (Ben?) and we can go off the tourist path a bit.

All in all though, definitely a good trip.

The Warped Tour was today, but I’m not very excited about having gone. It was a lot of chaos and commercialism, with booths everywhere. It was hard to figure out where each band was playing, and even when we found the schedule there was no good way to see all the bands I was interested in. Plus, probably 90% of the attendees were still in high school. I’m too young to feel that old, dammit! My dad will probably laugh to hear me say this, but I don’t think most of those kids or even the bands really know what punk rock really is.

Hot Topic is not punk rock!

It wasn’t totally a waste I guess. NOFX was ok — they made a really funny comment about there being way too many tattoos and too much makeup in the audience. People latch on to the minor things that they think represent the genre, and completely miss the point. And then what really saved the experience for me: Zebrahead was awesome. They weren’t on one of the main stages, but that meant we could get a lot closer, and they still drew a large crowd. I hope all of those kids saw Zebrahead and thought, “Wow, is this punk rock?” Yes, yes it is…

On a completely unrelated note — we finally booked our vacation! Puerto Vallarta, here we come! It’s nice to have that all squared away, so now we can just look forward to the trip. We’ll be there for four nights at the Dreams resort, and we’ve also scheduled a canopy tour and an eco-discovery package. Plus the gorgeous beach that’s already calling our names…

The Department of State was kind enough to send us a couple of little blue books with our pictures in them. I was going to post a picture to prove it to you all, but then I decided I didn’t want to try to figure out what I needed to black out. Identity theft blah blah blah — it’s not worth the risk. Trust me though, we now have the means to re-enter the country should we decide to leave.

Then there’s the minor sticking point that while we’ve both taken vacation the week of our birthdays, we haven’t actually booked a trip. Once a procrastinator, always a procrastinator? I hope this means we will be able to find some amazing last-minute deals, but we’ll see…

I’m also taking this coming week off, just because. I mean, come on, we already get Monday and Tuesday off for holiday, so I might as well take three more days, right? Anyway, Stephen, one of my best friends from college, is flying in from DC to visit, which will be awesome. It’s been way too long since we’ve been able to hang out. Look out world — when geniuses get together, world domination is only a matter of time!

(Dear NSA: I’m kidding about the world domination… Please don’t hurt me…)

Millie and I finally applied for our passports on Saturday. We almost didn’t make it. I didn’t realize that there was an endurance test required, but we both survived.

I’m referring, of course, to the four-hour wait at the passport office. Why it took so long is beyond me, because it only took a few minutes once we were finally called. Maybe it’s just that other people didn’t have it together before going to apply. Or maybe the employees don’t care how quickly the line moves, so they take their sweet time.

Well, whatever, it’s done now. At least renewals can be processed through the mail, so we shouldn’t ever have to do that again. Now we wait for this-and-that agency to determine that we’re not terrorists, so we can get the actual passports. I’m told we’ll have them by July 5th, but then I was also told that the line was only going to be two hours. I’m not holding my breath…

Millie and I decided that this summer we need to take a real vacation — not a trip back to Colorado or Oregon like usual. The thing is, while it’s of course nice to see everyone that I haven’t seen in a while, especially my family, it just never really feels like a vacation. The feeling that I have to see everyone or feel guilty for the ones I don’t, it just keeps me from really relaxing. A few weeks ago we went to Vegas for the weekend, and that was cool, but there’s so much to see that I felt like we were running around trying to see everything.

So there’s only two basic requirements for a vacation spot this summer — it needs to be somewhere where we don’t know anyone, and we need to have plenty of time to see all the sights and still relax on a beach or something.

Behind door #1 is Costa Rica. There are beaches, mountains, jungles, and lots of cool history. A lot of people we’ve talked to have said that it’s beautiful there. Plus, there’s a unique irony that we could go from our home in San Jose, CA to vacation in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Another possibility I’ve thought about is Australia. Of course our summer is their winter — does that mean it will be cold? Anyway, AU has the benefit that I’ll have a chance at understanding the locals. I haven’t looked into it at all, but I think it would be cool. Well, except for the fact that we started watching Lost recently, but maybe I just need to make sure we don’t fly out of Sydney.

Or maybe we’ll end up somewhere else altogether. Neither of us have ever been outside the US before, so I think that will actually make requirement number three. So while we consider places to run away to, the first step is to get our passports. Maybe if we get around to applying this weekend, we can start getting serious about planning this vacation…