Shoup Airlines

Storm Watch ’05

I thought I would try and get this out before all the local news stations started sensationalizing the “wet” season here in Southern California. Not that we really have a wet season as compared to ANYWHERE else in the world, except maybe the Gobi Desert, but every year the local news teams throw on their ponchos and report live from whatever area is suffering from two inches of rain! Granted, there is the occasional mudslide or flooded road that strand some people, but the reporters always seem to blow it way out of proportion. Especially in light of recent activity in New Orleans, I really hope they tone it down this year. Yet somehow I can just see them trying to compare our sprinkles to the national crisis in Louisiana. But I digress…

To kick off this year’s Storm Watch, the OC and LA got a rare treat: thunderstorms! At first glance, I thought it would just be one puny cell spitting a little rain, and MAYBE throwing a few sparks. See, the geographic design of this area typically prevents boomers from existing, so one does not often get to experience nature’s coolest spectacle around here. Boy, was I wrong last night!

By 7 p.m., the boomers were rolling in with enough frenetic lightning and thunder to make a plasma lamp look like a cheap parlor trick…oh, wait a minute. I had to crack up because what seemed like the entire neighborhood was out in the street watching, eerily like that scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. You could almost hear the synthesized tune from the movie that invariably gets stuck in your head! Then the sky opened up with sheets of rain and again I was dismayed because boomers like this just don’t exist in SoCal!!

Turning in for the night a few hours later, it was still raining. I had to admit, I was quite impressed with this rare showing. However, as any good entertainer knows, you save the best for last! Around 2 a.m. I was awoken, ABRUPTLY, by what could only be compared to as the battleship Missouri’s 16″ guns shelling my house! I’m sure had you seen the expression on my face, you’d have seen the five year old version of me on Christmas morning. Ecstatic, I rolled over and went back to sleep. This only seemed to incite the thunderstorm! At 3 a.m., this bad boy opened up with all the Missouri’s AND the Wisconsin’s guns. The ground shook, car alarms went off, street lights went out because the bolts were so bright, and yet there was a bizarre stillness embedded in the pauses. Well, except for the five year old inside my head screaming, “AWESOME!”

This time, I jumped out of bed because I wanted to see the lightning bolts causing these massive reports of thunder. I peered out the window just in time to see Knott’s Berry Farm become the biggest lightning rod I’ve ever seen. I knew living next to this place was cool!

The oddest thing though, and after living in the Midwest and back East with ginormous thunderstorms, I never noticed this. As soon as the boomer finished it’s death wail, the birds started chirping. I didn’t know that would be the storm’s last strike. In fact, I was still waiting for some more sonic booms, but somehow the birds knew. How come?

Internet Explorer and other things that really piss you off!

I.E. SUCKS!! Granted most things that come from Microsoft generally bite the big one, but Internet Explorer is the epitome of all that is bad in my eyes. AOL comes in with a close second, but I digress. There is definitely something to be said for open source code and creative commons licensing. Bill Gates, your empire will crumble soon, very soon.

Being recently employed again, I find myself sitting at a cubicle with a computer, an Internet connection, and a lot of dead time on my hands. Gee, what’s a boy to do!? At first, I’m reluctant to reconfigure the laptop to my specs (ie: Firefox, Google, Open Office, etc.) so I relent to using I.E., rapidly remembering why I dropped it in the first place, it sucks! I also soon discover that my website appears without half of the images showing! I thought it may have been some coding that I had screwed up (this means late nights and lots of frustration because I have no kung-foo), but then I pulled the site up in Firefox and everything was once again at peace with the world. The nano-second this realization fires a synapse in my brain I’m ready to drop kick Mr. Gates and his world of Windows into the dark ages.

All of my code works fine in every other stinking internet browser except for I.E. $&@*$%!! I’m not only livid that I.E. has once again failed in it’s inadequacy, I’m pissed off because I know this isn’t going to be an easy fix, once again causing the late nights and frustrations! Most would say why not just leave it and let those with I.E. miss out on ALL the goodness that is Shoup Airlines? I began to think this as well (which isn’t usually my normal train of thought) until I saw the stats this month and found that 75% of the visitors are using I.E. That is sad, but I have to accept it. So, after roughly a week of comparing others code and image location settings in I.E., I found that it was several SPACES that caused I.E. to spew forth this crap, or more appropriately NOT spew forth the crap. That’s right! Spaces, those little voids between each word that makereadingeasieronyoureyes has long since been adapted to the coding world as well!! Apparently, Bill didn’t get that memo. Maybe he’s a bit tied up with a blue screen of death on his latest world subjugation project, Longhorn.

I apologize for those of you that have to view the Internet through I.E. If you have the option, I highly recommend switching to Firefox, as the image that should NOW appear in the sidebar to the right indicates. Words cannot express the level of superiority that Firefox and other fine applications of Mozilla hold over Windows products. Please now, enjoy Shoup Airlines in all it’s intended goodness, or badness, depending on how you look at this website.

Oh yeah, one more thing…I.E. SUCKS!!

Mental Note

WARNING: Parental discretion is advised. The following blog contains graphic material and student science project bashing. It is not recommended for children under the age of 14 (physically or mentally).

Just a word of advice, more to myself, than any of you. NEVER eat Taco Bell for lunch when you plan to go for a run later in the day. And when I say later in the day, I mean anything within at least a 24 hour period, post Taco Bell consumption.

I am not long for fast food to begin with, but when certain circumstances dictate I will partake. On Monday (it has taken me this long to recover from the traumatic stress), I was out in Riverside working on my ATP (a future entry) and found myself famished. Perusing the usual fare of products known to cause obesity, I had a yen for Taco Bell.

Enjoying a grilled stuft (sic) chicken burrito, a side of cinnamon twists, and a medium iced tea to wash it all down, I thought nothing more of the event. A good four hours later I went for a five mile run. Not more than a half mile into it, my stomach started to gurgle a bit. I didn’t think much of it, a common occurrence. “A little gas never hurt a runner, right?” However, this little “gurgle” began to build exponentially, and like the idiot that I am, I just continued to run and watch it. Kind of like when you flush the toilet, realize it is going to overflow, yet you just stand there, doing nothing, whilst the water comes billowing over the bowl. Not good!

“Ah, come on, you can tough it out. It’s just a little stomach pain, nothing bad can happen. Besides, you only have a mile left.”

“Yeah, but it’s not really going away, internally or externally. I don’t know…? Well, you know, I do hate it when I don’t finish a run. What the heck, it can’t get THAT bad.”

Oh, how wrong I could be! Another quarter mile and my little “gurgle” had morphed into a dark and bellowish bowel shaking earthquake that could have made Mt. Vesuvius look like a second grader’s science project that used Prego sauce and got poor marks!! I now know how the people of Pompeii felt, or would have felt, had they seen what hit them. The pucker factor knob was turned to 11…and a half. Oh, but I be damned if I didn’t stop running! No, the idiot in me persevered and made me finish the run. Let’s just say the toilet and I are not on speaking terms anymore.

There’s a reason they call it Taco Hell!