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I came across this fascinating and funny photo in this SomethingAwful article. I used to read every animal, nature, and insect book I could get my hand on as a kid, but I’d never seen anything like this odd beast. I tried Googling “modern trilobite” and similar, but to no avail. Finally, I returned to SA and found the answer in the forums; they are Giant Isopods, crustaceans that live deep in the ocean. They are closely related to the woodlouse, a small critter that most people are familiar with; back East, we called them “sowbugs.”

Apparently, they’ve sparked a small Internet meme, inspiring clothing and music.

I’d love to know that backstory behind this photo. Who fed their three Isopods a bag of Doritos? And what’s their favorite flavor?

This morning, our former foster dog Bianca passed away at her home after suffering two strokes. After we lost Poncho in March, we decided to try to make something good out of something bad by getting involved with dog fostering via Pit Bull Rescue San Diego (Poncho was a Pit bull mix). Bianca, an American Bulldog, was our first foster; she arrived at our home on March 20th, and was adopted on May 5th. People always ask us if it’s difficult to give up a foster dog. It is in some ways, but when the family that adopts the dog is a wonderful match, it makes it so much easier. Bianca was a very fortunate dog. She was adopted by a family with a 4-year old girl, who became Bianca’s best friend and protectee. They played hide and seek, dress-up, and shared a bed.

As you can see in the photos, Bianca’s early life was probably on the rough side. Given all of her callouses, she probably spent most of her time in a concrete kennel, perhaps as a breeder dog. Though we’re very saddened by Bianca’s death, it’s consoling to know that her last seven months in the world were wonderful months for her. In fact, she was slated to be euthanized in the shelter after being abandoned by her original owner. One of the Pit Bull Rescue volunteers recognized Bianca as a wonderful dog and saved her from imminent euthanasia. Bianca was a sweet soul; she had a particularly charming habit of extending her paw to anyone who paused to give her attention. She was gentle and loving with everyone, including cats and young children. Many older dogs like Bianca never make it out of the shelter, and end up as an anonymous statistic. Fortunately for her, there are caring people in the world like Bianca’s family who are willing to give older dogs a second chance at having a good home life, even if for a relatively short time.

Bianca will always have a special place in our hearts as the dog that helped keep our spirits up in the wake of Poncho’s untimely death. She was dearly loved by her family and by the volunteers at Pit Bull Rescue who were lucky enough to meet and help such a wonderful dog.

Nearly 20 years. Damn.

Anyway, looking forward to seeing everyone….I missed the 15 year, but the 10 year was fun and went really fast.

Here’s the site for general information and updates:

Reunion information

And here’s a forum for general discussion, catching up, name calling, etc.

Discussion forum

Met some friends last night for a beer. Their house northeast of San Diego had a very close call; fire came all the way into their backyard and burned down a gazebo (that they were planning on getting rid of anyway), but they suffered no damage otherwise. Two nearby neighbors weren’t so lucky. The firefighters left a note that they were there, probably saved their house. I have a feeling they’ll be receiving lots of cookies soon.

The UT put together a pretty nice fire map here that shows the location of many of the destroyed houses. Rancho Bernardo was hit really hard.

Air quality is pretty bad here, but other than that, it seems like the county has made it through the worst of it.

Though the fires continue to burn, our area is still well away from any activity. I’m surprised that it’s not smokier (though it’s still obvious that the air quality isn’t that great; check out this link for current and predicted air quality. The closest station to us is Kearney Mesa. The Escondido station is very close to the fires.

Here’s a map of the fires as of 6:00 am Wednesday morning. As you can see, winds have shifted and moved the active fronts of some of the fires.

We know lots of people who’ve been evacuated. Two of them had houses either within or very close to a burn zone. Thankfully, the fires seem to have spared them (though some of their neighbors weren’t so lucky).

As of 1 PM, the air in our corner of Serra Mesa is still OK, though I’m starting to see little bits of ash floating around (which means there’s probably lots of tiny particles floating around that I can’t see).  Our area seems to be one of the least affected by the smoke, based on pollution report data. The easiest way to find our neighborhood on a map is to find the spot where Highway 163 and Interstate 805 cross each other diagonally; our neighborhood is directly south of that crossing. (All of the steets are named after birds).

Oddly enough, the skies are still fairly clear in our neigborhood, though the smell of smoke is still prevalent and there is a light dusting of ash on the ground. Closer to downtown, there is ash visible in the air, but not as thick as it was during the Cedar fire. We’re fortunate enough to be out of the path of any of the fires, but these fires are definitely affecting many more people than the Cedar fires of 2003, especially in North County. Some areas of east Chula Vista (mostly Eastlake neighborhoods) are under optional evacuation orders as the Harris fire creeps closer northeast from the Lower Otay Reservoir to Sweetwater Reservoir.

KPBS created a great Google map showing the extent of the fire, as well as evacuation areas and evacuation centers.

A Flickr pool has been created to collect photographs from the fires; almost 50 pictures so far.

A coworker just sent the pictures below, taken from the backyard of her home in Spring Valley. As you can see in one picture, helicopters have been dropping water in the open space behind her house in an attempt to halt the spread of the fire. (This is the northeastern front of the Harris Fire, which originated near the Mexican border).

A few friends have emailed me asking if we’re affected by the fires that are raging all around the county. Thankfully, we’re only affected by crappy air quality at this point. All of the fires started pretty far east in the county in more rural (and brushy) areas. However, one of the fires in the northeast county, the Witch Creek fire, has been heavily fueled by strong westerly Santa Ana winds and has resulted in the evacuation of a large area north of Highway 56 between Interstate 5 and Interstate 15. Though that area is about 10 miles or so north of us, it’s a pretty large area.

The pictures below show the sky this morning from our house. It smells like a campfire, and you can see bits of ash on our cars, and the sky is a little hazy, but it’s not nearly as bad as the sky was back in 2003 when I lived closer to downtown. Here are some pictures and whatnot I posted in 2003 related to that Cedar Fire.

Noon update : Air quality still not too bad here (smells like a campfire, some ashes) but the skies aren’t black like they were over downtown in the Cedar Fire. I’ve been watching a lot of local news coverage; houses have been lost in Escondido, Rancho Bernardo, and I think even a southern corner of Oceanside. Parts of Poway (just north of Scripps Ranch the hardest hit area of the Cedar Fire) seems to be in danger. One fire official said that given the wind conditions for the next few days, the Witch Creek fire could spread as far west as the coast, which could affect anywhere from Oceanside to Del Mar, I’m guessing. I think the only reason our neighborhood isn’t too smoky is that there are no fires directly east of us, and the wind seems to be blowing in a strong westerly direction.

You may have noticed this evacuation area map. This is quite a large area, so you may be wondering, “aren’t there more than 250,000 people there?”  Much of this area could be described as high-income, semi-rural (large estates with several acres of property or more), so the population density is much lower than some other parts of San Diego county. Check out this Zillow link to see what I mean.

Here are some photo galleries from SignOnSanDiego.

Here are some Google map links showing areas where houses have burned or were in imminent danger:

3925 Tierra Vista Place Escondido

Lomas Serinas Drive, near Escondido

Area northwest of Lake Poway

Aguacate Way, Rancho Bernardo

Local news coverage

• City Of San Diego emergency fire information
• ABC 10 News
• CBS News 8
• Fox 6
• KUSI
• NBC San Diego
• SignOnSanDiego

Anyone received a call like this lately?

“Hello, this is Michelle with cardholder services, calling in reference to your current credit card accounts. As a preferred customer, you are now eligible for interest rates as low as 6.9 percent on all of your credit card accounts. It is urgent that you contact us today, since your eligibility expires shortly. Please consider this your final notice. Please press 9 on your phone now to speak to a live operator and lower your interest rate, or press 8 to discontinue further notices. “

The vague references to my “credit card accounts” tipped me off that this was probably a scam, just like the crap notices I get in the mail all the time pretending to be some official correspondence regarding my mortgage (the terms of which, unfortunately, are apparently public information).

A few times, I’ve pressed 9 to talk to someone. The first time, I asked to be put on their do-not-call list and was promptly hung up on. I redialed the # on the caller ID; the phone was answered by a bewildered Spanish-speaking person. Ah….called-id spoofing. A classy operation.

The second time, I tried to string them along a little bit. When “Greg” answered the phone, I asked him what company he represented, to which he replied, “Card Services.” I then asked, “well, I have several accounts via different banks or other entities. Which entity are you affiliated with?,” to which he answered, “oh, we can service any credit card.” You can see where this is going. I should have strung him along for longer, but as soon as I said, “how come I’ve received four of these same calls that say it’s my “final notice.” Greggy-boy got a little agitated, and said, “do you want on the do not call list? OK, here it goes…” and then hung up. Ass.

I found another blog entry that even has an audio transcript of the call. Apparently, people that have fallen for this can get screwed over pretty badly.

So what can be done? Until the feds bust them and shut them down, hit them where it hurts! Remember, time = money.  When you get these calls, press “1″ so you can talk to a live operator. String them along for awhile (without giving them any personal info, of course!), and keep them on the line as long as possible.  Ask inane questions, go on tangents, whatever.  If I’m in a bad mood, getting one of these calls is a good way to vent (though you get hung up on pretty quickly).  I don’t normally do that to telemarketers (I just give them the “put me on your do not call list line”) but this outfit is a reprehensible scam; no sympathy.

We recently added a new foster dog to our household. Meet Felene! She’s an adorable red nose American Pit Bull Terrier. Like Dolce, she loves people and is good with other dogs, but is more mature and more of a cuddle-bunny than Dolce. Then again, Dolce is about seven months old and Felene is probably between 1.5 and 2 years.

She’s fine with Trillium, and Dolce seems to be delighted to have an in-house dog-buddy.

I suppose it’s about time to introduce our new puppy Dolce. Since losing Poncho, we’d been volunteering for Pit Bull Rescue San Diego. We started out fostering an incredibly sweet American Bulldog named Bianca. We had her for about a month before finding a fantastic home for her. Dolce was to be our second foster, but after having her a few days we decided to keep her. She was almost five months when we got her. I’m not sure if she’s the same mix as Poncho; I think she could be part English Mastiff…definitely some kind of bully-breed (aka Molosser) in there.

I remember looking at Flickr a while back…seemed like you typical photo upload site. I recently revisited it, and was impressed with all the features and functionality it has now. Unlike some of the photo sharing sites, it allows you to download the full size version of any photo (your own or public photos). My favorite feature is probably the geotagging function. Say you take a photo in Brussels….you can find the location on a map, drag your photo to that location, which allows anyone viewing your photo to see exactly where it was taken. Here’s a map of my photos so far. I guess I need to visit some more continents to spread them out a bit. Here’s the photo that Flickr says is my “most popular” photo.

I’ll never see you again
I’ll never shake your paw again
I’ll never take you to the dog park again
I’ll never watch you spin in circles in eager anticipation of a car ride
I’ll never hear your “woooooo” again
I’ll never hug you again
I’ll never see your eager face in the window when I come home again
I’ll never watch you kiss a little dog that sniffs you again
I’ll never see your nose sticking out the window from my side-view mirror again
I’ll never hear you moan in your sleep again
I’ll never hear your soft whimper again
I’ll never see your sad, humble eyes again
I’ll never fix your ear when it folds back again
I’ll never smell your stinky dog breath again
I’ll never feel your paws on my shoulder when I bend down to put on my shoes again
I’ll never watch you galloping toward me like a run-away freight train again
I’ll never see you frolic in the ocean again
I’ll always remember you

We miss you so much, Poncho. You were such a good dog.

After two wonderful years of giving us joy and love, Poncho is no longer with us. He was hit by a car while we were away on vacation. Anyone who knows me knows how much I loved that silly dog. The house is so quiet without him; he was such a big part of so many aspects of our daily lives that everything feels kind of empty right now. (Fortunately, Trillium’s 20-pound footsteps on hardwood floors help make the house a little less quiet).

Losing a beloved pet is something that many many folks go through, but hopefully the first time is the worst; this is the most pain I’ve experienced in a long time.

To the few folks who knew about this and have offered a kind note of condolense, thanks again; it really helps a lot to know people are thinking of us.

It’ll probably be awhile before we’re ready to adopt another dog, but I have applied to be a volunteer for Pit Bull Rescue San Diego. (We’re fairly sure that Poncho was part Pit Bull or perhpas part Staffordshire terrier; given the number of irresponsible Pit Bull owners who don’t neuter their dogs, probably the former). PBRSD is a wonderful organization that isn’t limited to helping pit bulls, as you’ll see from their list of animals available for adoption.

I encourage anyone who’s willing and able to make a tax-deductible donation to PBRSD in memory of Poncho.

Friends will be aghast when they read this headline, knowing how much of a beer snob I am. I’m a devotee of Belgian beers as wells as domestic strong ale styles (Barleywines, double bocks, etc.). Now that I’m in my thirties, I figure if I’m going to put some miles on my liver, it may as well be with the good stuff.

In San Diego, our main haunt for good beers is O’Brien’s Pub, just a few miles from us.

When I visit Pittsburgh, The Sharp Edge is a mandatory destination for Belgian and other good local brews, as is a little bottle shop a few miles from my folks house. At the bottle shop, I noticed some big bottles I hadn’t seen before, one by Budweiser and one by Michelob.

The Budweiser Brew Masters’ Private Reserve comes in a quart (32 ounce) bottle, while the Michelob comes in a 24 ounce bottle that resembles an artillery shell. The Budweiser clocks in at 8.5% ABV, while the Michelob hits double digits at 10% ABV; these are not your typical mass-market domestics. I think I paid about $13 for the big Bud and $11 for the Michelob.
So how do they taste? The Budweiser label did not lie; it is a smooth beer, and the higher alcohol content is not obvious. It’s probably been over 10 years since I’ve had a regular Budweiser, but the Private Reserve basically tasted like a stronger version (almost double the alcohol!) of the original. That’s not to say that it was bad, but I can’t say that there was much complexity to the taste either. In some ways, it reminded me of a smooth version of an American malt liquor. Again, not bad, but probably not something I’d buy again (unless it was the only interesting domestic offering at a bar).

The Michelob was another story. Though I like the taste of vanilla, I was concerned that they might overdo the flavor. Fortunately, the vanilla flavor was quite well-balanced; it was obviously there, but it wasn’t overpowering. I’d definitely buy this one again. I’ll have to keep an eye out for it when I return to San Diego.

I waste a lot of time with Google maps. I’ve recently rekindled my fascination with London after finding the Hampton Court Palace maze on Google maps.

I think I also found the little pub across the street from the palace grounds that I enjoyed a few bitters at. The rear part of the pub had an outdoor patio right on the Thames; I crouched at the edge and touched it. (Yeah, locals are laughing at me because it’s dirty, but it seemed pretty exotic to a guy who spent his first quarter century living in Pennsylvania).

I’m not exactly sure which structure it was (the smaller one to the right or the larger to the left?) I don’t remember big umbrellas being that close to the water…but then again, I was last there in 1991.