My blog of Everything & Nothing

My Dog isn't unique, damn it!

noreply@blogger.com (Shane) — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 20:01:00 +0000

Below is some video of my dog Ruby eating corn on the cob like human. She's pretty good at it so one day last year we took a short video and sent it to America's Funniest Videos. Since they never called I figured I didn't win any money. :-( I decided I'd post it to YouTube and that's when I learned that Ruby isn't unique. The related videos on the site list a lot of other dogs who eat corn on the cob like a human.

Since I love my dog, I'm not going to tell her she's not unique in this aspect. She's got a lot of important barking, sleeping and chasing children to worry about, no sense in telling her she isn't the only dog who eats corn on the cob like a human.

Christmas Pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Shane) — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 20:00:00 +0000

Here's some of the pictures from Christmas Day at our house (click the picture to see the set.) The Girls absolutely love Christmas! For days they have been sniffing around the closet where we had the presents hidden. When we put the presents out Christmas Eve I had to close the stairs off to keep them from sneaking down and opening things early. You should see them open their own presents, they just start tearing into the paper and go to town. Yes, my girls are very spoiled! I have some video of them opening presents but haven't uploaded it yet.

Fun for your Windows Desktop

noreply@blogger.com (Shane) — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 22:01:00 +0000

Today I discovered two new toys for your Windows Desktop, RocketDock & ÜberIcon from Punk Software. RocketDock is very similiar to Apple's OS X launcher. So if you are looking for a more stylish way to launch applications compared to the lame Windows Quicklaunch bar you should check out RocketDock.

ÜberIcon adds new life to your boring icons. ÜberIcon makes your icons zoom, spin, break apart when you doubleclick on them, just like OS X icons do. It only needs 1Mb of RAM and runs from the system tray. There are a bunch of different plugins for different effects. I've been playing with this for the past day or two and really like the features and since I am stuck running Windows XP vs. OS X well this at least gives me a jazzy desktop. :-)

ÜberIcon is more of a fun thing for your desktop than a must have utility but hey we all need a little fun now and then. Enjoy!

Why is wine not cheap in Oregon/California?

noreply@blogger.com (Shane) — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 19:58:00 +0000

Yes this is another posted related to my trip to Italy. :-) What can I say, I came up with a lot of blog post ideas when I traveling and wrote them down so I could blog about them now.

When we were in Italy a lot of the wines we bought were about 6€/bottle. There were more expensive bottles but on average most of the wines were in the 6€ ($7.66USD) price range. That's a pretty good price for a bottle of good table wine. Even in the popular tourist towns for the most part you could find wine at decent prices. I suppose it is because the wine is produced locally so there isn't a lot of markup on the wine. I can understand having to charge more for an Italian wine shipped to a store in the United States because you have freight and import fees to cover.

This got me to thinking that Oregon and California are large wine producers and therefore shouldn't the same logic hold true? If you are buying an Oregon wine in Oregon shouldn't it cost less than the bottle shipped from Italy? I think it should but that isn't typically the case. Most of the time wines from Oregon/California are $10-$15/bottle compared to the 6€/bottle in Italy for wine that is of similar quality.

This leads me to believe that it is all the pretentious snobs in the US that have forced wineries to increase their prices because otherwise people will feel it is not a quality wine. Just because it costs more doesn't mean it is better! Some of my favorite wines are bottles that most wine folks would turn their nose at but I say 'If I like the taste, who cares how little I paid for it."

Thoughts?

0,25€ for 1,5L of Sparkling water! Hey Trader Joe's what the f***?!?

noreply@blogger.com (Shane) — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 19:43:00 +0000

I love sparkling water and we typically buy liters of it at Trader Joes for about 0.89 cents/liter but most stores charge anywhere from 0.89 cents to $1.75 a litter. When we were in Italy sparkling water was so much cheaper. We were buying 1,5L bottles for 0,25€ ($0.31 USD) at the grocery stores and the most expensive bottles they had were 0,95€/L I just don't understand why there is such a price difference here in the US?

If anyone out there knows why sparkling water is so much cheaper in Europe than in the US please let me know. Otherwise I'm chalking it up to stores in the US just being greedy and wanting a bigger profit margin.

Napoli...ehh, great food but not much else

noreply@blogger.com (Shane) — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 19:18:00 +0000

During our 3 weeks in Italy we spent a few days in Napoli. The reports we read about Napoli on Trip Advisor were mixed. Some people loved it and a lot of people didn't. Usually we only find trip advisor to partially accurate about a place mostly because the people that complain are typical Americans that bitch that the free breakfast only had coffee and pastries. (Hey idiots - the rest of the world doesn't eat a 2000 calorie Denny's Grandslam breakfast.) Or they complain that a place is dirty or some other odd stuff. Well this time they were spot on.

Aside from the food we did not like Napoli. It was definitely dirty with litter everywhere and the class of people seemed less professional/educated as compared with other cities throughout Italy. What is with all the spitting and blowing snot rockets from your nose? I'm not talking one or two people either. Everywhere we went in Napoli people were doing it. Use a handkerchief! On top of that people littered everywhere. We watch one man walk out of a Tabacchi shop, unwrap his cigarettes and then throw the wrapper and receipt onto the sidewalk. The kicker is that not 3 feet away was a trash can. It wasn't just this one incident either, everywhere in Napoli we went we saw similar behavior. Napoli definitely needs a Pitch-In Litter campaign.

I've never felt unsafe in any city we have been to around the world and Napoli wasn't any different other than the fact that I got the feeling that if you stayed long enough someone would try to mug you or at least try to pick your wallet. We spent most of our time visiting Pompeii and then in Sorrento or driving along the Amalfi coast which was a night and day difference from Napoli.

The food was definitely worth going to Napoli but that was about it. I had a marina pizza the first night we were there that was outstanding. It was just pizza crust with some tomato sauce on it and a small drizzle of olive oil. No cheese, no toppings and it was one of the best pizzas I've ever had. I'm not sure how they do it but damn was it good and worth going there for. There also wasn't a lot of cultural things (museums, parks, etc) to visit. We did hit the few that were there but compared to Roma or Firenze it was definitely lacking culture.

We really enjoyed the food in Napoli but won't be returning anytime soon. There are far better places in Italy worth visiting.

Argh-matie! There be Soul savin' within these walls!

noreply@blogger.com (Shane) — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 17:26:00 +0000

I took this picture in the village of Monterosso in Cinque Terre. This is the archway to a church and I think has to be my favorite church of all time! The skull and crossbones are the oddest thing I've ever seen on a Catholic church. I didn't take any pictures inside the church because I feel it is rude behavior to do in a place of worship. However the inside of the church didn't disappoint my expectations. In addition to the typical religious type paraphernalia there were statues of skeletons that looked like pirates around the eves of the room. This was sooo cool!!!

What would have made it even better is if when the padre did mass he threw in some pirate lingo. :-) Avast yee, it be time to partake in Holy Communion. Prepare yee souls or walk the plank into eternal damnation. Arrgh. lol.

DAMN YOU RICK STEVES!

noreply@blogger.com (Shane) — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 01:06:00 +0000

I don't exactly recall how Melissa and I learned about Cinque Terre, I seem to recall Melissa discovering it through the Italian Alpine Club or something like that but I do know it wasn't from goddamn Rick Steves [more about my beef with him in a bit.]

We spent four days in Cinque Terre, we had a great time hiking the various trails and it is a really beautiful place to visit. We arrived on a Thursday and hiked the N°2 trail, the most popular of the trails and the one that links all five villages, on Friday morning. There were people out on the trail but it wasn't too crowded and the towns were busy but not packed with tourists. Most books tell you to start in Riomaggiore and hike towards Monterosso, since we were staying in Monterosso we decided to start there and hike towards Riomaggiore. Turns our way is better for two reasons. First you get the harder sections of the hike out of the way early before the Sun heats things up. Second and even better reason is the majority of other people start in Riomaggiore so you have less people to deal with.

The picture up to the right is Vernazza, it is a really picturesque village and as you can see there doesn't appear to be a lot of people wondering around. We hiked down into Vernazza and sure enough there wasn't a lot of people around. We then continued on to Corniglia and the rest of the villages. We did the hike in 4hr 45min including 30 minutes for lunch in Corniglia. Not bad for 11Km. The maps they provide for the trails say 5hrs, which for Melissa & I usually means we can hike it in 1/2 that time. I was rather surprised that the times were pretty acturate.

On Saturday we decided to hike up the moutain [starting from sealevel] and take the N°1, which runs along the ridge of the mountains [810m (2657.48ft) @ the highest peak]. Most tourists don't hike this trail because you have to really hike and it doesn't really go through any towns. One of these days you'll see Melissa and me on that Discovery channel show 'I shouldn't be alive', because we never really take much or enough food, water, etc when we hike. For this hike we took 2 liters of water, the camera and there were 10 or so Lifesaver candies still in the pocket of my backpack. Other people we saw on the trail seemed to have much larger packs and supplies. Supplies are for sissies. ;-)

It was a pretty steep climb up the mountain and the humidity was making me sweat like crazy. (Props to the folks at Dupont for creating microfibre performance fabric!) The veiw from the top of the mountain was pretty cool. When you are hiking the bottom trail between the villages you think 'wow, those are some steep hills' but until you actually hike up them you don't realize because the hills go back and then there is still half a mountain to climb. We were hiking for quite some time and decided that we really weren't up to hiking the entire 20Km of the N°1 trail. So when we just outside of Cigoletta we left the N°1 trail and picked up the N°7 trail which would bring us down the mountain into Vernazza or Corniglia.

Did I mention that while I appreciate the fact the Italian Alpine club marks the sentieri, the red/white blazes are not always visible or visible for the direction you are hiking. More than once we had to back up and find a turn we missed because the mark was either hidden or we just didn't see one. The N°7 had several of these turn arounds for us. One was just past San Bernadino monastery. The trail turns up a set of steps with a clearly visible mark then 5 steps up there is a small (2-4 inch) marker on a rock wall and it is slightly faded. Well we missed it and wandered up the stairs and then across wall/path that looked like the trail. Eventually it ended and we decided to turn around. Once we got back to stairs we noticed the blaze on rock wall and were back on track. The next time we got lost was at some nice old lady's house. The trail went back her driveway and then turned (over the cliff) but it wasn't visible and we ended up walking into her yard. She was out picking grapes and told us that this wasn't the sentieri. She told us we had to go back and then andiamo giù (go down). She spoke no english and I was only able to get parts of her directions but I got that part. Though we were on a hilltop so I wasn't sure where this trail down was. She either meant it as our last meal or we just looked hungry because before we turned to leave, she pulled a huge bunch of grapes from the box she had picked and handed them to me. I thanked her and we walked back out the driveway and sure enough on a small rock was a marker and the path down the mountain.

I'm not kidding when I say we were on a cliff. To one side was a very steep (45 degree plus) hillside that if you fell down it you were going all the way to the sea. On the otherside was terraced vinyards. It is crazy how many grapes they grow on these hills. The trail worked its way down the apex of these two sides of the hill. Some places it was pretty scary (at least for me as I don't like heights) because it felt like if the wind blew you'd be knocked over the cliff. It took us a good 2 hours to hike down the mountain. Partly because it was steep and you had to go slow but also because we started at 810m and were going back down to sealevel.

The picture to the left is of Vernazza but this was only halfway down the mountain from where the old lady gave us the grapes and the zoom on my camera zoomed as much as it could go. The hike took 7 hours to do, we figured we did about 14Km based on what we could get from the maps we had. It was a great hike and we were getting really hungry at this point so we were really looking forward to getting some lunch in Vernazza.

Which brings me back to the title of this blog post. When we arrived in Vernazza on Saturday afternoon it was a completely different place. Choked full of turists in every direction and all the shops and restuarants packed to the brim. Why you may ask? Because when Rick Steves decided to write one of his travel books about Italy he raved about Cinque Terre and how 'If you only have one day to spend in Cinque Terre to spend it in Vernazza.' He loved Vernazza better than all the other villages and now as a result the place it choked full of tourists. Damn you to hell Rick Steves! I also saw some people with packs on their backs and a shirt hanging off the bag, apparently drying in the air. This is one of Rick's so-called tips...are you freakin' kidding me? Bring an extra shirt cheapskate! Hey, here's a tip for you Rick...go write about Ohio or New jersy because those are two place I have no intention of visiting so have at it.

We stopped in a place and got a couple of slices of pizza and sat out on the pier to eat them. While we were sitting there a few ladies from the UK walked by and the one lady said to the other "I bet this place was a lot better before they made a big deal about it." Don't get me wrong we really liked Cinque Terre too but it was soooo much better on Friday before the tour groups showed up for day trips from Florence.

Not an auspicious beginning

noreply@blogger.com (Shane) — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 23:04:00 +0000

Our three week trip to Italy sure didn't start off all that well. After 12 hours of flying in poorly designed seats (seriously have the folks that design airplane seats ever actually taken a 10+ hr flight? I doubt it or we'd have better design seats and maybe a footrest.) we arrived in Milan. You then have to take a 30 minute train ride into the city. On the train ride I decided to pull my cell phone out of my backpack and see if it was working. This way if we wanted to call home and check on 'the girls' or call somewhere for reservations we'd be able to. Sure enough the phone worked as expected but instead of putting it back into my backpack I stuck it into my front pants pocket. It was only after we got off that train and were about to board the subway train did I realize that the phone wasn't in my pocket. Shit! It had been 20 minutes and the train we came in on had already left and I'm sure someone had picked it up and was most likely making calls on my dime (well actually Intel's as this was my work phone. doh!)

We got to the hotel and I went and bought a phone card from the Tabacchi shop and tried to call the Intel oncall assistance center. They would be able to get my phone disconnected so that someone couldn't run up large phone bills. Well that didn't work because the OCAC is an 800 number and you can't dial a US 800 number from Italy and I didn't know the toll number. I then decided to call Debbie, a co-worker, and left her a voicemail (it was 5am Pacific time) about what happened and if she could get the phone disconnected for me. Thanks again Debbie I owe you big time. :-)

Well that sums up the first two hours in Milan. Fortunately the rest of our time in Milan and the rest of Italy went really well! I have most of the pictures uploaded to my Flickr site if you want to take a look. The rest of the pictures will be uploaded shortly. I have a number of blog posts about various pictures and some things that happened during the trip and will be publishing them in the coming days so stay tuned.

Opening Post

noreply@blogger.com (Shane) — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 00:06:00 +0000

While is is my first post on this blog is it not my first time blogging. I have been blogging for nearly a year now but on the internal Intel blog site, which unless you work for Intel, you wouldn't be able to access. Therefore I decided to start this external blog so that I could share my thoughts and opinions with friends, family and the rest of the world.

Unlike a lot of other blogs, my blog does not have a theme. Why? Well because I feel that most blogs fail because the author themed the blog and then ran out of topics to talk about. Besides if I themed my blog and diverted from the theme too frequently well then I may lose readers. If I leave it unthemed and post on whatever topic I feel like talking about well then I didn't mislead anyone on expectations for this blog. Hence the title for my blog 'Everything and Nothing'. :-)

For those of you who don't use RSS software and still read blogs the old fashion way you can subscribe to my blog via email (link on sidebar) to be notified when I post a new entry. In the coming posts I'll be covering a variety of topics but since I just returned from 3 weeks in Italy I'll be starting with a number of posts about the trip.

cheers,
-shane