SUKRATA

Best New Company Name

Today’s best Fark article headline:
Russian energy company Gazprom announces new Nigerian partnership, picks the most amusingly inappropriate name ever 

The headline of the article is:
Racism debate after Russian and Nigerian gas companies combine to form ‘Nigaz’

A bonus from the article:
One Nigerian in Lagos said: ‘White people are making too much of this.  ‘As long as the Russians pay us, they can call it what they like.’

I’m proud of my wife

Last week my wife was stopped at a stop light and a young woman bumped her from behind.  The only damage was that the paint on the bumper was scratched up.  Through all the events so far, my wife has been flawless - from the handling of the initial situation through dealing with the other person and getting the bumper fixed. 

The part that I’m most proud of her about is that she’s doing the right thing even though it means more work for her.  She’s trying to resolve the situation in the way that’s best for both us, and the girl that bumper tapped her when she could have easily just called her insurance company and filed a claim.  Filing an insurance claim would have been best for us, but not best for the young woman.  Going through the insurance company would have been a much easier process and provided a rental car while our car was being fixed.  Instead, my wife did extra work on her part to avoid the insurance company so that the girl didn’t suffer increased rates and marks against her license for such a little thing.

I’m proud of the way my wife has handled everything related to this little accident.  I hope that the girl realizes how nice my wife is being.  I makes me feel good about the world to know that there are people like my wife in it.

You Would!

As part of a normal cross cube conversation, one of my co-workers said “I like Chryslers”.  Another co-worker retorted “You Would!”.  That brought a lull to the conversation as people processed it.  After a few seconds, I gave up and, while snickering, said “I don’t even know what that means!”.  He replied “Neither do I!” and we both started laughing.

I just thought that was funny for some reason.

Summer bumps and bruises

I’m hobbling from a possible broken toe I suffered at a BBQ/Pool Party last weekend.

My son is sunbunt and has a solidly bruised and scabbed elbow from a wipe out.

My daughter has a fairly large popped blister on her hand from over-doing it on the monkey bars.  She also has a decently sized scrape on the bridge of her nose from a swimming pool accident.

My wife is recovering from her 2nd carpal tunnel surgery, so she has the kung fu grip of a 2 year old.

We’re all a little battered or bruised in one way or another, but I like to think of them as the good kinds of bumps and bruises.

Micheal Jackson died today

This afternoon at work, I heard that Michael Jackson was rushed to the hospital with an apparent heart attack.  Minutes later, news websites reported that he was in a coma and not expected to make it.  Not long after, I heard that he had died.

Personally, I’ve always thought Michael Jackson is/was one of the greatest entertainers of all time.  Thriller sold 100 million albums.  Very few artists will ever get anywhere near that.  It’s a terrible shame that he got so wierd after the height of his career.  I will still turn up the volume for Thriller, Bad, Billie Jean, and many of his others and rock to them.

My semi-in-laws are in town and we’re all sitting around watching the new special about Michael’s life and death.  I’m surprised they’re able to throw something like this together so quickly.  So far, I’m very impressed with it.  It seems to be the right mix of lauding his merits and making fun of his oddities and questioning his indiscresions.

One odd thing about sitting here is that I’m currently writing on my semi-neice’s laptops.  Yeah, that’s right - she’s in her teens and has a laptop and I don’t :(.  THANKS SWEETIE!  Out of the 7 people in the room right now, 4 of us are on laptops.  A couple are looking up Micheal news, one’s playing a game, and I’m blogging.

I also find it odd that everyone here seems to have different ideas about him.  I would prefer to hear the good things about him, his career, and his affect on the music industry as a whole, but I also want to hear a fair story.  My wife seems to want to the news to focus on the wierder side of him.  My semi-neices know who he was, but really don’t much care.  A few of the kids are playing down stairs and are greatly enjoying not being bothered by the adults. 

Thanks again for letting me use your laptop Sweetie!

My Scary Flight

Last week I took a business trip to see a client.  The flight back was scary.

It was a small airplane a CR-700 or something like that.  There were 17 rows of 4 seats separated by an aisle.  I was in the absolute last row next to the aisle.  Just before take off, the flight attendant pulled out a stowaway seat I hadn’t seen before and sat down in the middle of the aisle next to me.  The bathroom was also right there.  Her seat blocked the row, but if the flight attendant is sitting down - everyone else should be too.  As I always do, I listened to the safety lecture, located the nearest exit and reviewed the flight safety card.

As we took off, the flight attendant and I chatted.  I got her talking about her flights that week and where she’d been.  Our flight was a United flight but it was being ‘operated by’ some other company.  The other company operated flights for other airlines and as a result, she got to fly on all of those airlines for free.  I thought that was a pretty good deal.  But the real point here is that we talked all the way up until she had to start working.  Then she got up and was gone serving drinks or whatever else they do.

We were in the air for about 30 minutes when we hit the first turbulance.  It wasn’t bad.  I had a drink and didn’t spill any of it.  A couple minutes later, we bumped around a bit.  The captain came on the intercom and told everyone to take their seat and put on their seatbelts.  Both flight attendants tooks their seats and belted in.  We hit a little rougher turbulance.  Then all of a sudden the plane took a dive.  It was fairly level, but we definitely lost a bunch of altitude.  It was the same feeling as being on a roller coaster and dropping off the big hill at the start.  The guy next to me let out a long low groan.  The whole dive lasted about 5 seconds.  I looked at the flight attendant and she didn’t look worried, so I didn’t worry.  I hadn’t even spilled my drink yet. 

After the dive, I noticed I still had a drink and wondered what I should do with it.  I assumed there would be more turbulance for the rest of the flight.  That’s when I noticed that the pop in my drink was not level.  It was pitched forward and to the right.  I assumed the pilot was trying to get us to a place with less turbulance.

The flight attendant was still buckled in next to me.  We hit another spot of turbulance, that bumped us about and turned us left and right, but didn’t drop us like the last one.  The flight attendant and I started talking about turbulance and other flight stuff.  She was in mid sentence when the seat belt tone went off twice quickly.  She broke off our conversation and with a quick practiced swipe of her hand grabbed a hidden airphone.  She held it to her ear and simply listened.  She never nodded her head, she never said “uh-huh” or ‘ya’ or ‘OK’.  She just listened.  After at least a minute, I looked up the aisle and saw the other flight attendant doing the same thing.  That’s the first time I figured there was something actually wrong. 

All of a sudden she said something like ‘acknowledged’, quickly hung up the phone, and popped out of her chair.  She popped the overhead bin above my head, pulled something that looked about the size of a first aid kit out and dropped it in her seat.  She drew a deep breath, looked at me and in a tone of voice that portrayed a little fear and a little annoyance, said “Here we go.”  Then she took off down the aisle.  I noticed she had to use the seats to guide her.  The plane was not level, and we were bumping a bit. 

The captain came on the intercom and said that in the turbulance, we had lost the auto-pilot.  I couldn’t hear all of it because the engines were right next to my head.  But I did hear a few key words - hard landing and bounce.  I thought I heard something about a diverted landing, but I also heard something about being 15 minutes from landing, so I assumed we were just going in.  The captain instructed the flight attendants to begin the emergency drills.  That’s when most other people realized something was actually wrong.  Personally, I didn’t know auto-pilot was that big of a deal.  The pilot should be able to fly the freaking plane without it.

The flight attendants went through their safety thing again.  This time everyone paid attention.  As soon as they were done, the captain came on the intercom and requested that any firefighters, police or other emergency personnel were on board to please alert the flight crew and they would be re-seated in an exit row.  I think that’s the point where everyone finally knew there was a real problem. 

When my flight attendant came back to sit down, I told her “I’m not a firefighter or cop, but I have emergency training and I can help.”  She asked “Do you want to sit in an exit row?” in a way that clearly said “Please say yes”.  I said sure and we were off.  She was up the aisle, pointing to an open exit row seat. and waiting for me before I even go out of my seat.  I sat down, buckled in, and she gave us the exit row info one more time and specifically asked for a ‘YES’ to the question “Do you understand and Are you ready, willing and able to perform these functions?”  Of course, I said yes.  Then she was off.

The guy next to me asked if I was a cop.  I said no, but that I’d had emergency training that covered things like this.  I let him know that I wasn’t an expert, but that I knew more than most.  I told him that I assumed we were going to have a decent landing, but if we needed to open the door, here’s how it’s going to go.  I’ll make sure it’s clear to open the door, then I’ll open the door and toss it.  If it’s clear to get out (no deadly jagged metal), I would send him out.  His job would be to gather the first 3 people out the door and call to them loudly to follow him and then head away from the plane.  I explained that everyone would follow the line of people after that.  I also told him not to worry too much about the people who were following him, because if they COULD follow him, it meant they were not in real danger of dying from any injury they had.  He was happy to have the job of being the first one out and getting the F away from the plane.  I told him that I’d stay behind a bit to get the flow of people going out of the plane (assuming there wasn’t a MAJOR problem - then I’d be getting the F out too).  The flight attendant stopped by again and re-iterated almost exactly what I just finished saying.

The co-worker I was traveling with looked back and we caught each other’s glances.  I grinned and gave her a little wave.  Then I noticed she had a little bit of a nervous or flustered look on her face.  I remember thinking “I wonder if grinning and waving like that was wierd”.  I still feel like it was wierd, but it was like the nervous wierd where you really don’t know what else to do.

The flight attendants took their seats for the final time.  We were out of the turbulance by this time, but it still wasn’t a perfectly smooth and level flight.  The flight attendant came on the intercom on last time and said something like “We’re decending into our landing pattern.  If you hear us call “BRACE BRACE BRACE”, immediately take your emergency position.  If you hear us call “EVACUATE EVACUATE EVACUATE”, open the emergency exit doors and begin evacuation from the aircraft”.

There were a tense few minutes as we decended for our landing.  Everything seemed to be going well.  I was almost confused that it didn’t feel like there were any problems.  When we finally touched down, it was a perfectly good landing.  I’ve had worse.  When we came to a stop, everyone started clapping.  I looked out the window and saw at least 3 large airport style firetrucks and even more police or other support vehicles.  All had lights flashing.  They were waiting for us. 

We taxied to the gate without problems.  Since I moved seats, I had to wait for almost everyone else to get off the plane so I could go back to my seat to get my stuff.  It surprised me a little when a few people from the back end of the plane passed me and said “Thank You”.  They must have seen me move seats to be in the exit row.

Everything else after that was totally normal.  I still wonder if they lied to us about the problem or not.  I searched the web for a bout 10 minutes to find any info about our flight and didn’t find anything.

My Vacation on Maui, Day 10

Today we spent the entire day in Kihei.  Our overall impression is that it was great and is our favorite place so far.  Ka’anapali was very very nice, but it felt a little ‘upscale’ for us.  Kihei was just more comfortable.  It seemed to be a little more friendly and have places and things we were more familiar with.

On one of our whale watching tours earlier this week, we saw a brochure for “Volunteering on Vacation”.  It explained that the organization had several ongoing projects that all could use volunteer help.  It sounded cool, so we signed up for one.  This morning, we helped out on a beach/dunes restoration project.  A stretch of beach had some overgrowth and a sandy walkway that needed attention.  There were about 15 people volunteering this morning.  We were surprised at how organized and well run the morning was.  Bob, the main guy, had a plan and all the tools we needed.  Some of us shoveled sand, and some of us cut and piled brush.  It was a pretty good feeling to help out and it was nice to see that many people volunteering to help.  We all worked for 2 hours, which was about the right amount of time because I was DONE shoveling and moving sand after doing it for 2 hours!

I met a pretty cool Hawaiian dude named Nate and saw Jesus!  Actually Jesus was a homeless dude that graced us with his presence.  Jesus appeared at the top of the dune path we were shoveling, and slowly walked down the path.  The 4 of us shoveling stopped, stepped back and let him pass.  Surprisingly, I didn’t smell him.  After he passed, we all looked at each other with raised eyebrows.  Nate was the first to crack a joke and we all laughed.  Nate also had a pretty good idea - Blogo t-shirts in the same style as the Che or Castro t-shirts.  I think they’d sell.

We were pretty tired from the experience and hung out at the beach for a bit to rest.  We intended to rent a sea kayak for a couple hours, but while we rested, we didn’t see any whales, so we decided against it.   Instead, we bummed on the beach for a few hours.  The Kihei beach was a true sandy beach.  It was fine sand to at least 15 feet deep.  That makes it nice for swimming, but doesn’t supply much in the way of snorkeling.

We got a little hot at the beach so we grabbed some lunch and decided to see another movie.  Slumdog Millionaire was playing, so we hit it.  It was surprisingly good.  Both of us liked it a lot.  It was a perfect way to spend the time in between then and the sunset.

We headed to our sunset spot a little early and watched for whales as we waited for the sunset.  My wife’s new sunset friends showed up again too.  It was pleasant talking to them while we waited.  The unfortunate part was that the horizen was clouded, so the sunset was a bust.  We plan to try again tomorrow.

My Maui Vacation, Day 9

Today we took a day long snorkeling and whale watching tour.  My wife and I were pretty excited about it.  The itinerary was a whale watch on the cruise to the first site to snorkle at Molokini Crater for an hour.  Then we’d do whale watch #2 and lunch on the way to snorkel stop #2 at Lanai.  Finally, we’d head home while watching for whales again.

In the first 15 minutes of the tour we were able to see about 10 whales all at once.  Some were closer, some were farther, but the point is that we could see a lot of them.  It took about 45 minutes to get to the first dive site and at one point the captain said “at this point I’m basically dodging whales”. 

The first snorkel site was the Molokini Crater.  It is a famous snorkeling site.  It is an extinct volcano crater that sits right at the top of the water and jas one side open.  The open side has a coral reef.  The closed side protects the open side from waves, currents, etc and that makes for very clear water and great snorkeling.  We hopped in and immediately saw fish at the reef.  We snorkeled around and saw tons of fish and coral.  There had to be 50 or so different kinds of fish.  One of my favorite things was seeing a large parrot fish and hearing the scraping noise when it took a bite of the coral.  But alas, all to soon it was time to go back to the boat.  The only thing I didn’t like about the site was that each boat there had a ‘designated’ snorkel area.  I didn’t know that was the case until I crossed one of the lines and a crew member shagged me back.

On the way to site #2, the girl next to me asked me to take her picture.  I ended up talking to her a lot.  She flew in from Seoul, South Korea a few days early for her sister’s wedding.  I know her Korean name, but I don’t know how to spell it (or really how to say it).  Forturnately for me, she told me I could call her Amy.  She spoke english very well and was even learning Spanish.  There was something surreal about sitting on a boat in the Pacific Ocean speaking Spanish to a Korean.  I thought that was pretty cool.  Amy was interesting and we talked quite a bit before and after snorkel site #2.  Since Amy didn’t have a dive buddy, I invited her to swim with my wife and I.  I was surprised to hear that she didn’t know how to swim.  So she was going to use a swim noodle and didn’t want to slow us down.

Site #2 was the island of Lanai.  It was right outside the hotel where Bill Gates was married.  My wife and I agreed that this dive site was better than the first.  Again, we saw fish as soon as we hit the water.  It wasn’t quite as clear, but I can’t complain about being able to see 60 feet under water.  We saw lots of different kinds of fish (different than Molokini).  We even saw a green sea turtle.  It was kinda sad because it was missing its back right leg/fin.  The coral at this site had many more peaks, valleys and other formations that just made it more interesting than the Molokini site.  I couldn’t believe it when they said the hour had passed. 

We got back on the boat and got set for the ride back.  Amy found me on the boat and excitedly told me that she went snorkeling without the swim noodle.  A sweet older lady sitting near my wife told me that she noticed I always seemed to be diving under the water.  I replied that I was very at home in the water and actually preferred being under the water though I’m not quite sure why.

On the ride back we saw plenty of other whales while Amy and I continued to talk.  She said she was going to write about her vacation adventures and wanted to include me and asked to take a picture of me.  I told her I was doing the same and gave her my blog address.  I hope she visits and likes my blog!  Hi Amy! 

After that trip, my wife and I headed out to get some dinner and watch the sunset.  I really like watching the sun set, though I’m not quite sure why (other than the obvious point that it’s beautiful).  We went to Maui Tacos and had a different opinion of our dinners.  Hers was bordering on GREAT, and mine was edible.  After dinner, we hit a nearby beach to watch the sunset.  My wife read the guidebook and found that a beach down the road was THE place to watch the sunset.  So we hopped back in the jeep and were soon there.  I found a good spot to take my pictures, but had a very hard time getting my camera (new from Christmas) to take a picture with a good exposure.  I took a ton of pictures, so I hope a few of them turn out nice.  There’s also supposed to be a ‘green flash’ at the last moment as the sun goes below the horizen.  Unfortunately we didn’t see it because there were some clouds in the way. 

While I was taking pics, my wife made some new friends.  They said they saw the green flash 9 times last time they were here and that we’d picked THE BEST spot on Maui to watch the sunset.  I think we’ll go back tomorrow to try to catch another sunset and a green flash.  They also told her about sea kayaking and how close they were to a whale today.  So, she’s all excited about that and we’re off to rent a sea kayak tomorrow.

Vacation in Maui, Day 8

Today my loving wife dragged me to a Run for the whales.  We did the 5k walk portion of it.  It was a very nice experience and I liked it a lot more than I thought I might (and I got a ‘free’ t-shirt). 

On the way back, we passed a movie theatre and wondered what was playing.  “He’s just not that into you” opened this weekend so we decided to stop in and see it.  It too was much better than I expected.  I shook my head several times at the utter BS some of the chicks were talking about or doing.  At that same time, my wife leaned over and said “We used to talk about all that stuff and disect everything like that back in high school.”  I think I snorted…  Anyway, the movie was funny and entertaining.  However, it did make me think of “When Harry met Sally”.  There were several similarities.

After the movie we had a couple hours until dinner, so I finally took the opportunity to try to snorkel off the beach at our condo.  The surf made the water so sandy that I could barely see past my hands.  I swam around a bit, but it was so dirty everywhere I went, I just gave up.

We went to a sushi place tonight for dinner.  It was pretty good.  I still liked Momma’s Fish House and the Luau food better though.

Vacation in Maui, Days 4, 5, 6 & 7

Day 4 -
Today we walked the streets of Lahaina.  It is a pretty cool place.  It’s known for the shopping, but my favorite thing was the Banyan tree.  I’ve never seen one in person before.  A banyan tree is a tree that when it’s branches grow, roots grow down from the branches and start another tree, but at the same time it is connected to the main tree.  So if the tree lives long enough, it ends up as multiple connected trees. 

My wife, of course, liked the shopping.  We stopped at an actual Crocs store and bought Crocs.  I have to admit, I bought Crocs, and they work really well for getting around out here.  I don’t have to worry about them getting wet, dirty, sandy, or anything.  After a walk on the beach, I just hose them off and I’m good to go.

When we got back to the condo, we learned that the our snorkeling tour had been cancelled due to windy weather.  So my wife whipped us up a whale watching tour and off we went.  The tour started out very slow.  The winds made spotting the whales much harder.  Towards the end of the tour, we spotted a mom and calf whales on one side of the boat, and a pair of males on the other side.  The calf played for 10-15 minutes or so and then started nursing.  While the calf nursed the mom held her fluke out of the water for the whole time.  The crew said they’d never seen that before.  At the same time, the two males on the other side of the boat were breaching.  They jumped out of the water several times each and even (almost) did a double.

Day 5 -
Today we took the road to Hana.  We followed the tour book and were able to find most of the things that sounded good to us.  The road is a fairly tough drive.  I think one of the books said it was 617 different turns.  The road goes around the Haleakala mountain/volcano.  The red sand beach was awesome and the Venus pools were great too.  The views from the two of them made the trip worth while.  The whole trip took us 9 hours.

Day 6 -
Today we hung out on the beach right outside our condo for the moring.  The Maui channel (the channel that just plays stuff about Maui 24 hours a day) called it the “most walkable” beach.  It’s pretty nice. 

The afternoon took us to the a walkway on the Kaanapali beach.  I had a lot higher hopes of the walkway, but the beach was really nice.  The walkway is also home to Whaler’s village.  My wife went shopping and I went to the the little museum.  It was all about Hawaii’s whaling history.  Reading about the life aboard a whaling vessel amazed me with how hard it must have been.

Day 7 -
Yesterday’s visit to Kaanapali beach made us want to go back.  The books said it was good snorkeling and great weather - perfect for both of us!  I went snorkeling quite a bit and my lovely wife finished her book and a magazine while lounging on the beach.  The seas were very calm, but there was a chop/surge right near the shore.  I saw many species of fish and a sea turtle.  It was a great day at the beach for both of us.  We ate dinner at “Cheesburger in Paradise” and headed home to rest.