Posted by jon on Jun 28, 2009 in
Uncategorized As a relatively frequent traveler I have learned how to get through airport security efficiently, despite the best efforts of both clueless fellow passengers and the bureaucracy of the TSA.
I learned a few things. Avoid secondary screenings…
Don’t wear a hoodie through the metal detector, especially a baggy-sweatshirt-type. Take your hoodie off. The whole point is contraband could be hidden in the hoodie and baggy clothes.
Tuck your shirt in. This goes along with the whole baggy clothes things.
Do the whole liquid-in-baggies thing. Pleading ignorance will get you no-where
Remember to take your water bottles out of your luggage. I’ve seen too many people forget them in there
I’m also irate at the whole Clear situation, as I was a Clear member and relied upon it so I could arrive at the airport about an hour before my flight and be able to walk straight from the car onto the airplane.
So those are my lame tips, but hopefully they’ll help you.
Posted by jon on Jun 3, 2009 in
Uncategorized View Larger Map
After dinner across the street from my hotel I walked across town to the Cuban Cigar Outlet to pick up some Cubanos for myself and my friends. I zig-zagged through town, seeing some great sights and sites.
I wanted to hot-link all the pictures in, but they’re now up at picasa and my iPhone auto-located for most of the pics, so you can track them along the routes.
Like a lover in a abusive relationship, the B5 S4 that is parked outside the hotel on occasion (with the RS4 mirrors, no less) makes me pine for my Nogaro princess, which is long gone. The food is from Fourquette Fourchette which is across the street from my hotel. Lots of good gourmet stuff including rabbit, caribou, elk, buffalo, deer, veal, and seafood.
The building is the North American ICAO headquarters here in Montreal. Good for us aviation-types.
Further along is a view of the entrance to the Square Victoria metro station made to look like a Paris metro station.
Eventually, there is a nice view along Boulevard Rene-Levesque looking towards Mount Royal.
Finally, on the walk back I spotted the FX35 that someone had recently smash-n-grabbed. There was also a Z8 outside Centre Bell, which was packed tonight. I guess there was another Celine Dion show. The Habs were out of the NHL playoffs for a while, so I know it isn’t them.
On my walk tonight I also saw an A5, two Maserati Gran Turismos, and a Quattroporte. When the weather gets nice, people bring out their toys.
This was the route back to the hotel. Not quite as exciting…
View Larger Map
Posted by jon on Jun 3, 2009 in
Uncategorized For grins I wanted to see where the top gear test track/recording facility is and how far it is from London.
I went to Google Maps and put in to find directions between “LHR” and “DUNSFOLD PARK, GODALMING, SURREY, GU8 4BS”
The map GOOG gave me was this one.
The destination GOOG parsed from “DUNSFOLD PARK, GODALMING, SURREY, GU8 4BS” was:
The Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London, Westminster, WC2, United Kingdom
The URL above should confirm the easter egg…. or lack of parsing.
If I do “DUNSFOLD PARK, GU8 4BS” it works fine…
Tags: funnies, GOOG, top gear
Posted by jon on Jun 2, 2009 in
Uncategorized I had a hosting bill I didn’t realize I needed to pay, since the hosting company had an expired credit card.
Posted by jon on Mar 28, 2009 in
Uncategorized As you know I’m obsessed with airplanes and almost done with my private pilot’s license. I can’t afford an airplane, but I can afford a weekly powerball ticket. Alternately, I can afford the occasional raffle ticket. The problem is, there are a lot of raffles to choose from. For $50 or $100 I get one out of a few-thousand chance to win an airplane.
The DA-40 XL is nice but the taxes on the winnings would be more than my house, I think.
The Luscombe is tiny but not a bad little airplane.
The 172 is the most practical of any airplane offered.
Although this is an ultralight the 2nd and 3rd place prizes are nice, too.
Can’t forget about the 152, either.
The Swift guys usually do a raffle, but they haven’t posted the details yet for 2009.
Tags: aviation
Posted by jon on Mar 15, 2009 in
Uncategorized Just for reference/fun, and to see how I do on search engines, my clear flyclear discount code for 2009 is DSCAM1136187
Good for one free month. Should be good through 4/2010.
Posted by jon on Mar 13, 2009 in
Uncategorized Remember the story of One Red Paperclip and how it led to a house? I’m wondering if I can do the same which will lead me to a 1950s Navion B model with tip tanks.
Things I have to trade…
Computer Junk:
Sun E3000 with 6×400Mhz CPUs
Sun A5000 FC-AL array with 6 146GB FC-AL drives
NIB Sun Exx00 system boards
HP DL580 with 1GB of RAM, 4×72G disks, and 4 x 2.3Mhz Xeon CPUs with HT.
Avionics:
Sigma Tek HSI
KNS-81 RNAV
King KMA-24 audio panel
Other stuff:
A set of wicker patio furniture that is painted white.
A four-year old female beagle named Annie who is UTD with shots and fixed.
An out-of-tune 1910s-era John Spencer and Co. upright piano made of a lighter wood.
A set of approximately 40 “piano-key” windows with leaded glass.
Assorted toys for small children.
A four-stroke-engine based 21″ lawnmower.
A full-size car engine hoist capable of 5,000 lbs lift.
Posted by jon on Mar 13, 2009 in
Uncategorized There have been lots of musings about buffer overflows in PDF documents and the ability to take control of someone’s system just by them opening a document.
Recently I was staying in a hotel and decided to play with Nessus against the hotel network. I found the following on one of my fellow guest’s computers.
So there is a “super-user” like login for a web interface to an application with the username and password handily given to anyone who can browse to the webpage.
Tags: fail, itfail, security, securityfail, Techie
Posted by jon on Feb 22, 2009 in
Uncategorized My grandmother’s old house is still for sale. My grandmother and grandfather built that house for between $20 and $40,000 in 1954.
Comparatively, this is one of the most expensive homes in our neighborhood.
Tags: homes
Posted by jon on Feb 22, 2009 in
Uncategorized A while back I posted this prior entry talking about facebook and genealogy. I’ve found facebook a fascinating and extremely useful tool for keeping in touch with family. Over the past few months I even used facebook as a tool to alert some family members of the passing of another family member and disseminate information about the funeral.
Now I find myself doing more and more research, some at the behest of my brother, as he and his wife are about to bring another niece or nephew onto the planet (in the next week or so.)
This brings me to Aunt Flo. Not that aunt flo. I actually have two or three in the family tree! This one is my great-great aunt who lived in Richmond, IN. With some research we found out she was a chorus girl for Eddie Cantor. There was other information there that we had no idea about. And then, low-and-behold, once I had the microfiche newspaper articles scanned in they were e-mailed to the appropriate family contacts that I had found on facebook.
It is minor and trivial in it all, but I still find it endearing and amazing. At least it is to me.
Tags: family, internet
