"The internet is a place where absolutely nothing happens. You need to take advantage of that." ~ Strong Bad

I am currently sporting the worst sunburn I've ever had.

Saturday, at my brother's suggestion, I joined him and several of his friends climbing Mt. Adams. It was an awesome experience, and while not as challenging as I might have hoped from a technical standpoint, it was definitely more physically demanding than I had prepared myself to expect.

The climb is nominally 5.7 miles and 6700 feet of vertical. Due to the late snow melt, however, the road was impassible three miles from the trailhead, making the climb over 50% longer and adding several hundred feet of elevation gain. I have to admit, I was aching long before we'd even reached "Lunch Counter," where most of the two-day climbers pitch their tents. Oddly enough, I got better as it got steeper, and we reached the top about eight hours after starting.


The descent was far easier, taking only 3-1/2 hours, and although we still pushed fairly hard, the last three miles seemed to take forever.

It also happened to be the sunniest day of the year, and after 12 hours with the sun shining both from above and reflecting from below, even the best sunscreen couldn't save me. Actually, the worst of the burn is my own fault for forgetting to protect my legs, but you know it's bright when even your septum gets burned. I also probably had over a gallon of fluids throughout the day and was still dehydrated the next day.

The outdoor soccer season is officially finished, but since we're currently at the top of our division, we will have a championship game to conclusively decide first place.

I've been busy again, hence why I haven't written. I keep thinking I will have time to squeeze in an update, but it never works out. This time:

I drove home for my brother's high school graduation, and to help do some heavy lifting work on the barn.

I've had three more soccer games, resulting in a win, a forfeit win, and our first loss of the season. The loss also earned me a beautiful set of cleat marks on my chest. They're still quite red two days after the fact. The forfeited game wasn't very fun either. First Google gave me incorrect directions to the field. Then a stranger gave me worse directions (not even the right city). Add that onto the fact that there are literally four different roads in Tualatin that intersect each other and are all named "Boones Ferry Road" and you've got a recipe for driving around in utter bewilderment for 45 minutes.

I did a networking job for a client who I've worked for several times before, but this time he was in a hurry to get the job done. Three nights of finishing up between 11 PM and 2 AM pretty effectively stifled any other plans I might have had for most of the week.

I attended a training seminar on project management. It was actually pretty interesting and moderately useful.

I went with Kerry and some friends to the Pet-Aid concert at Edgefield featuring Nada Surf, Presidents of the United States, and Spune. POTUS was by far the best act of the concert.

And lastly, I went to my cousin Greg's wedding. The reception was great, although I was guilty of sneaking off for a bit to see a historical aircraft display at Hillsboro airport, which was down the road.

Add on the usual working, eating, sleeping, laundry, and everything else, and updating my site ends up low on the priority list. I'm going to bed now.

I just got an email this week informing me that the documentary I acted in several months ago will finally be airing on the National Geographic Channel this Monday at 9 PM. It's called "Undercover Titanic with Bob Ballard." Unfortunately, I don't get the National Geographic Channel, but my friend Tom does and was nice enough to offer to record it on his DVR.

At the time of filming, I didn't know specifically what the program was going to be about. Obviously it was about the US submarines USS Thresher and USS Scorpion, lost due to accidents during the cold war with all hands. However, National Geographic had already done a documentary on those boats. The bit they didn't share with us was the new details: Bob Ballard's successful search for the wreckage of the Titanic in 1985 was a cover story for US Navy inspections of the wreckages of the Thresher and Scorpion. The Navy was certain the Soviets could learn important information about our submarines from examining the wreckage, since we had already tried doing the same with the wreckage of one of their submarines, so they wanted the locations kept secret.

I'm guessing I'll get no more than 10 seconds of exposure during the hour long program, but if you're interested in history and get the National Geographic Channel, tune in and keep and eye out for a sailor in 60's bell bottoms trying to restart a scrammed nuclear reactor.

On an unrelated note, I updated the graph below showing the spam posts per day. They're still at it pretty hard. I have over 43,000 in the database right now.

Driving down Lombard the other day I heard a funny clatter. As I glanced in my rearview mirror I saw a motor-scooter skidding down the street with the rider tumbling ahead of it. Pretty sure the rider was going to need some help I slid to the shoulder and hopped out, but he was already shaking himself off. He checked over his bike, then himself a couple more times and rode off. I think he just pulled a stupid and endoed. Keeping things interesting in north Portland, I guess.

Other interesting things from the last week or so:

Our house went camping and fishing at Barview (near Tillamook). The waves were breaking high enough we had to fish further up the bay from normal, and the fish weren't biting well, but Trevor found a wallet full of cash on the beach.

I squished the pink forklift. This was another one of the fun, destructive tests I sometimes get to do which are always followed by boring test reports.

I'm sitting my sister's dog Daisy. This led to me finding out that Oxyclean carpet cleaner is one of the few infomercial products that does exactly what it says it does.

Lastly, I spent part of my Memorial Day paying my respects to our deceased veterans at Willamette National Cemetery. I was most impressed to learn that four Medal of Honor recipients are buried there. I looked up their stories when I got back home. Every one of them is extraordinary:

  Lt. Colonel Stanley T. Williams
  1st Lt. Arnold L. Bjorklund
  SPC Larry G. Dahl
  SFC Loren R. Kaufman

I lost a giant pink forklift at work on Friday. Other people I've told this usually ask one of two questions:

How do you lose a forklift?
Why in the world do you have a pink forklift?

To answer the first question, the forklift was checked out to me for a project. I'd done some work on it earlier in the day, but in the afternoon when I went back, it wasn't where I left it. This isn't uncommon. Someone will need a truck the same configuration for something and borrow it without talking to the engineer who has it checked out. It was a mild surprise because it was an older truck and no one had used it in probably a month. It's a little odd that they should suddenly need it the same time I do.

However, it's usually pretty easy to find these missing trucks and admonish the thief. It should be even easier to find when it weighs 22,000 pounds and is bright pink. Nonetheless, I wandered the entire facility and didn't see it. I had given up for the day and was walking back to my desk when I finally spotted it tucked away in the stress lab, minus its brakes, steering, and a few other parts. Fortunately, I don't need it in running condition for the test I'm planning.

As for why it is pink, we paint some of our prototypes different, garish colors to make them easy to identify (and find, assuming they aren't hidden behind closed doors). It also adds some variety, and the silver, red, and blue trucks all look pretty sharp in my opinion. There's even a couple that are pretty close Univeristy of Portland royal purple. Unfortunately, flame jobs and logos are frowned upon by the bosses.

Last week in soccer we had a solid 4-0 win. I again played the last few minutes in the goal, and this time even made a save. The week before I substituted in for keeper and allowed 2 goals to close the game in a 3-3 tie. I think they were both tough shots, but I'm better in the field, and our regular keeper might have been able to make the saves if he'd been able to play.

I missed this week to babysit my siblings while my parents were away at Gonzaga for my brother's graduation, but we won by forfeit. Congratulations Joe. Now comes the fun part: finding a job.

My website attracted its first spam about three years ago. Getting targeted by a spammer was kind of like a creepy person hitting on you in a bar: distasteful but flattering. Actually, I can't claim to have ever been hit on in a bar, but I'd imagine it feels a bit like getting spam.

Since that time, the rate has very slowly increased. I'd see one every few weeks. Then it was several times per week. As of January it had risen to around 10-20 per day, which is when I wrote a filter to block illicit messages. Frankly, zombie spam-bots are pretty dumb, so it was easy to write a script that catches over 90% of the spam using simple heuristics. In the last week, however, the rate of spam postings has exploded shockingly...well, I'll just let you see for yourselves:

It stopped being flattering well before it reached the 1000/day level. I've responded by tweaking the spam filter and tightening down the limits, and I now seem to be catching about 99% of all the illicit messages.

It's a balancing act. If I set the bar low I have to spend extra time manually removing bad posts. If I do it right, you'll never notice either the spam or the filtering. If I get too strict, ordinary posts will get blocked along with the spam. That would mean you couldn't brag on my site about the cheap Louis Vuitton purse you got from a shady Russian version of Amazon. Actually, talking about purses doesn't excite me, but at the very least I'd rather talk about them with you than that creepy Russian guy, flattering as his advances may be.

I'm afraid I have to admit, although it might not be prudent, I kind of enjoy screwing with rude drivers.

As I was driving out Highway 26 yesterday, I saw in my rear-view a big Ford Excursion cut someone off, then brake for the car ahead of him, and cut off another person. As I watched, he pulled he pulled up to about a car length behind me. I flashed my brake lights to give a hint that I didn't like him riding my bumper in his 7000 pound SUV. He wasn't able to figure that out, so I slowed down for a bit then sped up again to force him back. He responded by pulling even closer, so I repeated my message. At that point he pulled up probably only 4-5 feet off my bumper...so close that I could see him leaning to see my car over his own hood.

By then it was clear he wasn't clever enough to figure out that courtesy begets courtesy, and having had my fun there wasn't much more I could do unless I were to decide to make an insurance collection from him, so I found a gap in traffic and moved over. After giving me an evil glare, he layed on the throttle and raced a couple hundred yards ahead to the next car in line and hit the brakes again.

My housemates probably think I'm a little nuts, but I've started a garden in the back yard. Right now I've got tomato and pepper sprouts taking root in a hotbox. Today, with some help from Kerry, I made a raised garden bed out of lumber I found washed up along the river and planted carrots, radishes, lettuce, and peas. Once it warms up a little more I'll add some green beans and corn. This is partially for the fresh vegetables and partially because I felt like playing in the dirt.

Soccer last weekend was a 1-0 win.

Outdoor soccer has started up for the spring. After having played indoor all fall and winter, I'd actually started to forget how much more I enjoy the full fields, 11 man teams, playing style, and even the rules of outdoor. We opened strong with a 4-1 win. We seemed to have picked up a few good recruits in the off-season, so I've got good hopes for this to be fun and fruitful season.

Our goalie couldn't make it to the opening game, so another player substituted. He'd been out injured for two seasons, so he was itching for field time, and he talked me into substituting for him if we scored three goals. It was the first time I'd played goalie since U-10!

Fortunately, our midfield was dominating. I almost had to face a single shot but it was blocked by a defender, and I touched the ball exactly once in about 20 minutes from an easy roller into the box.

But don't think that just because it's spring that ski season is over. There's still 190" of snow at Mt. Hood Meadows, and more expected this weekend.

I went skiing last weekend with Dan in one of the more pleasantly bizarre experiences I've had. I forgot my ski-pants and was left skiing in jeans and a running shirt...which was no problem since it was about 60° on the mountain! It's weird to see people sunbathing in the parking lot with 16 feet of snowpack a couple yards away.

Some lowlife keyed my car. I'm guessing it was last night while it was parked on the street, but I didn't notice it until after work. They were very deliberate about it, too. There's three distinct scratches running about 2/3 the length of the driver's side. Fortunately, I don't think they quite go through the primer.

This is the sort of thing that really ticks me off. There's plenty of things that aren't fair in life but you have to put up with because of bad luck, bureaucracy, or even selfishness. As I was thinking about it, however, it was the utter senselessness of it that really got me. Whoever keyed my car can't even claim selfishness as a reason. Absolutely the only thing they stood to gain from what they did was the knowledge that they had frustrated another person. I can hardly imagine such a meaningful life.

My car's had a hard winter. The fenders got scratched up by the over-sized tire chains Les Schwab sold me. After that a rubber trim piece under the chin fell off somewhere on the road. That part's not really noticeable though, and seems to have been completely vestigial. Then I had rock chip form a crack in the windshield. I'm pretty sure I know when the chip happened because I remember a rock hitting about in that area. I could have sealed it to keep it from growing, but the chip was hidden by the wipers and hard to make out so close to the dash. I found it one morning when it froze and there was a crack 3/4 of the width of my windshield.

All those make sense, though. They resulted from a mix of bad luck, poor design, and dumb mistakes.

Keying my car, however, was pure malice.

As you all know, today was a relatively important holiday. I started off by relabeling the hotkeys on my boss' keyboard with things like "Erase Drive H:" and "Flashy Lights" and "hamsterdance.com." It was nothing fancy by any standards, but he actually noticed it almost immediately when he got in today. Even better, I'd also relabeled my own keyboard, so he was nearly convinced it wasn't me until I confessed.

The real festivities, however, were targeted at my neighbor Bill. As he went to lunch, another coworker and I set up an alarm on his cabinet consisting of a pair of flashing, orange strobes and a warning buzzer wired to a switch on the cabinet door. As a not-so-subtle hint to get him to take a peak (and to make him suspicious so we wouldn't give him a heart attack), we posted a bunch of "Danger" and "Authorized Personnel Only" signs on the cabinet. Unfortunately, he decided to take a short lunch today so he could run some errands. He caught us just as us we were finishing up, but he still got a pretty good laugh out of it.

Tomorrow is one year since I was hired by NMHG. I'm not sure if they count my employment history from then, or from when I actually started working there (as a temp agency contractor). I'm hoping it's the latter, as some benefits increase over time, and it's getting close to three years by that measure. It's hard to believe it's been that long.

The weather's finally turned spring-like, but it looks like there's also plenty of skiing left. There's almost 17 feet of snow on Mt Hood right now, which is more than they usually have even at the winter peak. I'm glad I bought a spring season pass.