Baron’s Blog

Okay, I think I’m going to clean my apartment when I get back to Kona after seeing this apartment online. I wonder if there’s a treadmill under all that trash in the gal’s apartment? She seems to have a bottle of Febreze, a Brita water pitcher and doesn’t smoke in the kitchen. I’m sure that makes all the difference for one’s health.

The title is what someone on an airport crash & rescue crew said was their slogan.

My plane at San Francisco. We had a little problem with an acrid, burning smell upon take-off, no smoke. The pilot, and passengers, didn’t care for that much so we made a U-Turn and headed back for SFO.

We were met by the SFO crash & rescue crew. So that plane was out of commission, I think we swiped a plane bound for LAX to fly to Kona. Now we wait on the plane, they haven’t loaded the galley on board yet, despite the 2 hour advanced notice.

I think my repaired laptop might make it to Kona before me from Apple.

Latest update is that it was oil that had spilled in the engine by work crews when they changed out the engine the night before, the oil burned, fumes got sucked into the air system. We’re pushing back from the gate now. Laters.

The flight from SFO, the 2nd one, to KOA was uneventful but didn’t get much rest as now it was later in the day and a more crowded plane. My laptop didn’t make it to Kona, probably will tomorrow.

Dennis at Triple 7 during my last night in Las Vegas. He hosted a BBQ at his place the night before, no photos of that as it was just too kick-back. Dennis practicing his shaka for a future trip to Hawaii.

Carly at Triple 7 Brew Pub

Carly probably wondering if she could finish another Royal Red Ale. Triple 7 is a pretty easy place to hang out since it’s right in Main Street Station, I can use the freebie food coupons to get grinds there too. The day before I watched the Hawaii Little League team win the World Series on the many flat panel TVs in the Brew Pub with the loyal Hawaii crowd watching during lunch.

I recommend the marinated portabella mushroom burger with pepperjack cheese over the standard hamburger there. I had the brewmaster’s special Mango Cream Ale 5% ABV, pretty good stuff but I’m not a real beer drinker so what do I know?

Fry bread in Cameron. This is fat-free right?

Grand Canyon next.

The drive west.

That’s a lot of erosion.

Johnnie, Abbie, Sophie, Dooley, me

My hosts, Matt was at work, in Flagstaff. They used to live in Hawaii, okay, Dooley lived in California until he got displaced by wildfires and couldn’t find his owners but he seems to be set-up quite well in Arizona.

Photographer Sophie

Sophie shows me how a ‘real’ photographer gets the job done. I had to use a film camera as a kid, you know, those cameras that had a light sensitive plastic ribbon in it that had to be sent away so you could see photos days later.

Boudin Cafe at SFO

Okay, so I didn’t get to Fisherman’s Wharf but they did have a Boudin Cafe at SFO where I could buy a loaf of bread for the trip and a bowl of chowder.

Chowder in Boudin sourdough bread bowl. No Anchor Steamer, this was breakfast.

Posted via WordPress for iPhone. WP rocks.

Fog, not vog in San Francisco.

GPS and Lake Mead

Heading towards Lake Mead and the Nevada-Arizona border. I bought that GPS for the trip and it worked well. It didn’t lead me to any cliffs at night or leave me stranded in the desert.

Dam bypass

Sometime in the future the bypass to drive over instead of on top of Hoover Dam will be completed and America will be safe. When driving on the dam you have to go through Homeland Security checkpoints to make sure you aren’t going to, you know, blow up the dam or some crazy terrorist thing. I’ve seen the movie The Dam Busters when I was a kid on late night TV and let me tell you I doubt my little rented Ford Focus would even chip away anything important from Hoover Dam. Most likely it would just be a stain on that solid, though they keep saying it’s still drying, piece of concrete.

Lake Mead

Water level getting low?

Arizona Highways

Blue skies, open road and a few hundred miles to get to Flagstaff. A long drive but pretty easy to get there. Note to self next time, stop at In-N-Out Burger in Kingman or Rosies on the Arizona side of the border. When I drove into Kingman I got some gas, bought a Powerbar and started eating that, then drove past the burger joint and wish I had known and eaten there.

Abbie

And when I go to Flagstaff I got a standing ovation from Abbie!

Met the Canon top brass this morning when I happen to run into them at the Onizuka Center for International Astronomy Visitor Information Station. The CEO of Canon USA saw I had Canon cameras and asked me if I had used Nikon, I told him the last Nikon I really used was an F2AS. I also mentioned that Canon needs to be consistent on making all of their lenses, especially those ‘L’ lenses excellent since a few ‘L’ lenses have been inconsistent (hey, he asked). He thanked me and said their goal was to be there for photographers 24/7/356. In full disclosure this was shot with a Sigma 8mm fisheye. Ouch!

Actual laptop LCD image, click for larger view

Yeah, that’s what my MacBook Pro 15″ LCD screen looks like with the laptop running. It looks pretty much the same stunning quality on an external monitor. Seems my laptop is another victim of the NVIDIA chipset bug. All of a sudden my laptop would not output video to either the built-in LCD or external via the video port.

Seems NVIDIA made a boo-boo with some chips.

See here: http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/07/09/nvidia-g84-g86-bad

and

here: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=2108

And this comes 10 days before I go on vacation. Nice going NVIDIA. And before you Windows fanboys/fangirls poo-poo Apple, read the top link, this affects HP, Dell and ASUS users too. ATi anyone?