Short post today since I’m on vacation, but I can recommend the pies at Random Order. Hope your weekend was a good one!

Brief post today, as I’m on vacation in Portland. I highly recommend the Belgian waffles at sympatica; you should get the apple syrup on them rather than the green tomato syrup.

The election is on Tuesday, and you might like to review the California ballot measure overview I wrote last week.

The very first time I saw the Grand Canyon, it had a helicopter in it, rising above the sides. I was looking from the car as we approached, and the blue and white helicopter was there, hanging in space, space with walls of rock behind it, white and ochre stone.
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I didn’t get to cycle in Amsterdam, but in three days of wandering around I got a reasonably good sense of the city from a transport standpoint.

That sense tells me that despite lots of pedestrians, cars, trains, ferries, trams, and scooters/motorbikes, the dominant mode of transportation in Amsterdam is the bicycle.
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I bought a Kindle back in November, and have now had time to evaluate it. I’m happy with it and so far have seen few downsides.
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I’m not referring to a physical zone here, of course, but mental states can often feel like places. Especially when confusion is one of their hallmarks.

Right now this is a mixture of jet lag, sleep deprivation, and tiredness.
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Despite my love of books as physical artifacts, and my love of simply having physical books around, this evening I pulled the trigger on buying an ebook[*] reader, and I went with the Kindle on the basis of recommendations from a bunch of people I know who have them.

I was motivated largely by space considerations: I already have too many books for my living space. While I could alter that space to accommodate some more books, it’s ultimately unsustainable. In addition, I’ve been feeling more and more that I need to cut down on the physical objects I have (and/or care about), and that a minimalist approach to “stuff” would be healthier for me.
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Sliding down a chute, beer in hand.

I don’t like that he’s facing felony charges. His actions are misdemeanors at worst. I hope he doesn’t get fines or jail time.

Despite my techie nature, I’ve never been enamored of books in electronic format. I love the feel of books, and while I have no trouble reading large amounts on screens of various kinds, I don’t like the idea of doing so for books.
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Usually going east is tough for me in terms of jet lag. This is related to my being a night owl—going east means it’s harder to get up in the morning and easier to stay up late, and I have enough issues with both those things already. This time it’s been a little easier, I think physical activity has a lot to do with that.
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Yosemite was fantastic, and I’m too tired right now to post more than one photo, but I think this is the best one I took.
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More accurately, Club Deportivo O’Higgins. I had already thought about visiting Chile, but now it seems like I should not only do that but try to see this team play a match, preferably at home.

Naturally, they’re based in Rancagua, capital of The O’Higgins Region.

(Yes, somewhere back along the line, I’m distantly related to Bernardo O’Higgins.)

I travelled from Dublin to Timişoara and back recently, and had a great time at and around Kev and Oana’s wedding. I’m not going to write about the good times, though—I’m going to write about some of the maddening little things that can make travel so vexing.
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Tom Vanderbilt has a fascinating article in Salon today about Samoa switching its driving side and about the history of what side of the road countries drive on.
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I went to Point Lobos State Reserve with Niall Murphy yesterday, stopping at Monastery Beach on the way. I took some photos for the first time in quite a while.
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In all my trips to Dublin Airport over the years, this one is the first one where, going through the “nothing to declare” channel, I saw actual Customs staff performing typical Customs duties (no pun intended)—that is, they accosted some people at random and brought them over to have their bags checked.
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Over the weekend I was in York for the absolutely wonderful and joyous occasion of Helen and Mary’s civil partnership ceremony. I’d never been to York, or indeed the north of England, before. England is a place I haven’t been to much at all—one three-day weekend in London about a decade ago, plus lots of trips through Heathrow, and that’s more or less it. Being there this time brought a certain amount of cultural disorientation with it.
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San Francisco Airport recently added a “Cell phone waiting lot”, which provides an alternative to endlessly circling the arrivals area. It’s not that easy to find, and the signs for it aren’t that prominent. To find it, you follow the signs for “Long-Term Parking” until you see a sign that has a cell phone on it.
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“Airport security” is getting more and more ridiculous. It was already quite ridiculous, but the reactive nature of it, so apparent over the last couple of years, makes it more so. Some guy tried to use “shoe bombs”, so now everyone has to take their shoes off. There was an alleged plot involving liquids, so now they’ve banned liquids from planes (despite the fact that such a plot was foiled in the 90s, too, and wasn’t exactly a new attack vector).
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Road signs. This is something that irritates me as a pedestrian, and a cyclist, and a driver. But it’s worst when driving. By “road signs” here I specifically mean the signs that let you know what the name of a street is. It’s truly amazing how much better the San Francisco infrastructure is for that than the Irish equivalent.
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I’ve lived in the Bay Area for over eight years, and over that span I’ve travelled to Ireland many times, probably making more than thirty trips—each one of those being more than one flight. Now it looks like direct flights are on their way.
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Lots of people, especially those from Southern California, deride San Francisco’s weather. These people should spend time in Ireland, as that would give them an appreciation of just how good SF weather is.
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“… experiencing a delay. We appreciate your patience.”

“Attention station agents and passengers. The delay affects the Castro, Church, or Duboce & Church stations. We appreciate your patience.”

“Attention station agents and passengers. The delay fled from Duboce & Church, apparently towards Van Ness. Inbound trains remain stuck for the time being. We appreciate your patience.”

“Attention station agents. We have a wandering delay loose in the train system. Last seen at Van Ness. Consider the delay armed and dangerous, and do not confront it.”

“Attention station agents. We have cut off access to the tunnels between Van Ness and Civic Center to trap the delay. Do not attempt to apprehend anything coming out of those tunnels.”

“Attention station agents and passengers. We have an all clear for outbound trains. Outbound trains should resume normal service soon.”

“Attention station agents. A SWAT team cornered and killed the wandering delay inbound between Van Ness and Civic Center. Cleanup crews have contained the resulting delay and hope to remove it very shortly.”

“Attention station agents and passengers. We have a cleanup delay at Van Ness. We hope to clear this within an hour. We appreciate your patience. Thank you for riding Muni.”

(200 words)