Just for a change, I woke my DOG from a sound sleep so I could go to the bathroom.

We got Kyra about a week ago and have been bit nervous about her behavior. We figure that she really hasn't had any proper training and had to pretty much fend for herself growing up, so recently she's been a bit snippy around other dogs or skittish even, but a little too dominating with Josie (Kristen's dog). After her mom had a grand idea, Kristen' got her brother's dog, Dakota, to come over to the house for a few days since he is young, energetic, and full of muscle. It was great to have had something with which Kyra could learn so appropriate behavior and not be so domineering. There is still a little bit of separation anxiety and she air snaps a lot, but I'm hoping that a good bit more training can resolve those issues.

We spent a good bit of Christmas at Kristen's parents home and had a really good time with my now accepted family. In attempts to better socialization skills, we've been taking Kyra along with us. She is doing a bit better, but I'm sure there is still a good bit of work ahead as there is with any young, untrained animal.

Every time you speak, your mind is on parade.

Last night Kristen and I took the dogs downtown to watch the Elves Overboard boat parade. Before she got her promotion, she had spent a lot of time setting up the event which consisted of two parades with last night's even being the biggest. There were probably 30 or so boats involved that ranged from small pleasure craft to an actual ocean-going tug capable of pushing around massive cargo ships. Many of them involved music being piped in, but one large boat even had a live band playing that continued on as many of them docked at the convention center. for the first time, members of the public could text in votes for their favorites, allowing a more interactive experience. The new dog was decently behaved, but still being her first day and tired from the afternoon runs she was still acting aggressively when we were sitting down, but not when simply walking about.

The value of a dog is its constant reminder of how much fun it is to be idiotic.

After still not having any contact from the Tampa German Shepherd Rescue, Kristen was able to find an adoption listing from a family in Deltona that had to give up their 4 month old dog as another child in an already overcrowded home was soon going to be added. After a decent call and e-mail exchange, we made arrangements to meet the family in Orlando near the IKEA to meet the animal. The initial meeting was a bit tense as the new dog was obviously quite frightened and was a little aggressive with Kristen's dog. We took both dogs for a walk in a nearby field and they seemed to do better, however the new dog does seems to be defensive/aggressive whenever we're sitting down, however when she's on a leash or running free (which we allowed at the dog park) there aren't any problems. I'm hoping that this is just due to being in a completely new environment and not having had the benefit of prior structured training.

When we got home I took her to a hash run and plan to take her out as often as possible to ensure proper socialization with people and other animals. We haven't decided on a name yet and thought we'd wait a little while to see why kind of personality develops as she gets acclimated to her new environment. She did show a bit of separation anxiety, so I'll need to figure out how to kill that habit very quickly and hope a couple of days of adjustment and routine will aid in her development.

One man's wilderness is another man's theme park.

To finish off our annual passes, Kristen and I hit the Magic Kingdom for the day to take in the Christmas festivities and doled up theme park. One of my favorite sections is Tom Sawyer island and I've seemed to have missed it the past several visits so we made sure to hit it this time around. We had a great ride on the Jungle Cruise, however were disappointed that the Swiss Family Robinson tree house was closed. This was the spot where I first told Kristen I loved her earlier this year, so it sucked to have missed that. There was absolutely no line for the Pirates ride (another favorite) or on many of the others such as Space Mountain (with the Fast Pass at least) or Carousel of Progress.

I like to sleep when I go camping, said Tom intently.

This was the weekend of the annual TBH3 campout. Toss and I were the hares for the trail on Saturday. I was able to make last minute arrangements to go through nearby Caliente Resort, which was nice, and had a long, but decent shiggy-filled trail to the Moose Lodge for lunch. We got to see most of our out-of-town friends and the daiquiri machine was churning all weekend with different concoctions that toss kept putting together. the rest of campout was the usual blend of foam pit dancing, live band, hot tub, afternoon olympic games, and plenty of food and beer (12 kegs in all for the weekend). We had originally planned to head to Naples mid-afternoon to look at a potential pet adoption, however after thinking more about it we were unsure if this particular animal would be a good fit. We're keeping an eye out for other potential German Shepherd dogs and have tried to contact the local Tampa German Shepherd Rescue, but haven't heard anything.

We have a two party system in our country: us vs Them

About 60 people showed up at our house for a party this weekend. In the early afternoon we set a trail from nearby Limona Park that looped around to come in behind the house and end in my driveway. The trail was long enough and fortunately no one got stung when I have looped a portion a little too close to a local bee farm, but the pack was kept pretty close together. The after-trail party was essentially for the birthday of Kiddie as well as Kristen. I set up some work lights in the wooded area behind the house for some back lighting that ended up looking great. Besides having the daiquiri machine churning out frozen concoctions all night, the kegerator was cold and full, the fire pit was roasting, and the weather was perfect. It was just cool enough to not require kicking in one of the AC units and just nice enough that the small fire provided a nice sitting area outside. Kiddie and Mams picked up some pulled pork, rice, and a few other things while Kristen put in a lot of time making the cheesecakes and they went over incredibly well with the friends. While I'm not sure if I can afford to have this kind of event too often, it was nice to bring together a lot of friends from around the state that I hadn't seen in a while. Several of the folks were good at helping keep the place clean, of which I was quite thankful. It had been a long week with a lot of projects with which I was dealing at the office; so the rest Sunday was quite nice.

What's shorter than a weekend? A Vacation!

Kristen's birthday is Monday, so we did some early celebrating and activities and had a pretty packed and complete weekend. On top of a birthday, just accepted a great job offer at Media General at a pretty good position which will involve a lot of work, however it'll be an incredible platform to learn and blossom. Friday I met her at work and walked through downtown to the Channelside area to have dinner with the family at Tina Tapas. After dinner, we all attended the Trans-Siberia Orchestra concert at the Tampa Forum nearby. I've always intended to see them throughout the years but never got around to actually going and was thankful for the opportunity. They are most famous for their holiday albums, especially their rendition of 'Carol of the Bells' that tends to get hourly play on most stations the week of Christmas. It was a fairly long concert with the first half dedicated to a Christmas story and associated songs with the second half involving other works that have their same flair for production and 80's style arena rock. I was especially looking forward to their performance of Carl Orff's 'O Fortuna' as they have yet release that album. Carmina Burana is my absolute favorite musical composition and this song is recognizable in a dozen movie musical scores over the decade, especially any scene involving knights riding off into battle against evil.

Saturday involved an early wake-up to pack gear and food for a morning drive to Jupiter, on Florida's east coast, for a couple of dives. I hadn't been in the water since the Australia trip in March and Kristen hadn't been in a couple of years. I spent part of Friday getting gear together and repaired and picked up a saltwater fishing license so we could go lobster hunting. The seas were a tad rough, however the dives themselves were fairly nice and it was good to get back into it again and felt as easy and comfortable as if we had been diving last week. Being typical east coast diving, we saw a nurse shark within a minute of hitting the bottom as well as turtles, spotted and green moray eels, and the usual assortment of fish. I was able to capture one small Spanish lobster, though 3 others go away. Mid-way through the second dive, I started hearing a hissing from the first stage behind my head and felt back to find quite a bit of air escaping from my high pressure hose. Apparently the hose was starting to split and was gradually getting worse. I took off the gear to look at it, probably freaking Kristen out a bit in the process since we were at 75 feet and still swimming with the current, and after inspection figured I would not be able to fix it. So I would not have to cut the dive short, and thus be cold, queasy and bored sitting on the boat, I just put my gear back on and spent the rest of the dive reaching back and turning on the tank just enough to pressurize the regulator to get a breath before turning it off to exhale. At first Kristen was right there with her alternate ready, but finally figured I must know what I'm doing and thus resumed the dive. Eventually we had to call the dive on NDL time. I was able to have a nice chat on the ride back in with an old dive acquaintance I knew through one of the online diving forums when I had been seriously active on the SCUBA forums and found it nice to hear of the divers still active and some of their recent trips.

On Sunday Kristen went to the football game, though I decided to bow out. I'm really not that into professional football and didn't want her to not enjoy the game and be worried that I was bored, so she hung out with her dad at the stadium for the Bucs vs Vikings game while I spent some time working in the garage and getting some things straightened for the party next weekend. Hopefully I'll have a chance to get the hot tub working and the rest of the yard fixed up before everyone arrives next weekend.

Hot water heater? Why do you need to heat hot water?

After a good bit of research, I finally decided to install a solar water heater in the house. I had started to see signs of the water heater that was already about 20 years old (since they often have a life span of 15-20 years anyway). When I was in Australia last March, I noticed that most of the homes actually had a solar water heating system installed and being in a very sunny area of the country, it makes sense to use it. The local electric company is also looking to increase rates by 20-30% by the beginning of next year. I have 4 adults in my home and figure that heating the water is a fairly significant amount of my bill. A lot of the marketing estimates suggest that

I was fortunate in that even though most of my home is shaded by oak trees, the area directly above the water heater stays sunny most of the day and is already on the south side of the home. I researched many different units such as Fafco, SolaHart (made in Perth, which explains why I saw pretty much only this in Australia), and Guardian. The Fafco unit did not impress me at all since it seemed to be nothing more than the same tubes used for a pool heating system, yet very expensive at and estimate of $5,500. I had liked the SolaHart and the simple thermosiphon system, but being in hurricane prone Florida, I didn't want a unit that required the storage tank to be on the roof; also considering any additional structural support that might be required. It was also pretty expensive with only one local company installing it and at a quoted price of about $6,700. Ouch. One surprising thing was that few of the sales people with whom I spoke really seemed to understand their products and the associated nuances outside of the marketing materials. When I started asking about Btu/ft² and how their product compares to others, they often had no clue as to what I meant, even though all products were rated at the Florida Solar Energy Center.

I did quite a bit of calling around to get prices and found that the fluctuated quite a bit on even the same system, so it really does pay to research options. I settled on getting a Guardian (using a flat plate collector) system installed. Estimates were as high as $5,900 - 5,500, however I was able to find one at $4,500 before finally getting to Advanced Solar Construction at $4,250. There is a federal tax credit for 30% of the installation cost, so after this year taxes are paid, I'd get a credit of $1,275 (lowering the out-of-pocket cost to $2,975). Florida is supposed to have a $500 refund available as well, but apparently the money for the program has been depleted for this year as well as next year, so all I can do is get on the list and hope it is eventually renewed, which would bring my install cost to ~$2,500. Getting a new water heater and installing it would have probably cost me at least $400, so overall my extra cost is about $2100. If I save on average $50 a month in my electric bill (though most marketing materials claim $20 per person per month) at just the current electrical rates, then it would take about 3.5 - 4 years to pay for itself. I tend to try to estimate worst case (part of my general pessimism), so I'm expecting on the outside just about a 5 year return period, but would of course be happy if it was less. Some estimate a 6-9 year return depending on location for soalr heating systems in general, so I'm pretty pleased with my deal. It may seem like a bit of money to spend at first, but right now it is a much better interest/return rate than I could get in any savings account or CD, plus I can feel good about reducing environmental impact. I really wish more people would look at overall cost of operating something other than just the initial purchase price.

On Friday the company came out to do the install. They removed the old 50 gallon water heater, installed a new, special 80 gallon tank, the solar collector on the roof, and did all the plumbing. Getting the large tank in place was a tight squeeze as the closet had just enough space to slide it in with not even an inch on either side to spare. I still have to install my own electrical outlet box to operate the pump since that wasn't part of the contract, but that is simple enough to do anyway. It took three guys most of the day to complete and I was fairly impressed with the work. It'll take a few days before I really learn the system and figure out how beneficial it may be, but so far I am pleased with it. I'm hoping that during the relative hotter months that I may be able to operate the system with the backup electric element completely switched off without any notice.

The ingredients are guaranteed to outlast the packaging.

I was at Costco recently to pick up some stuff and while browsing the aisles saw seemed to be an ironic product. It was labeled as being a plastic package opener and touted the line "Never struggle with plastic packages again!". One would expect that purchasing this product would make opening packages easier, however the item itself is in a hard, clam shell molded plastic package that has no easy means of opening! I think this would definitely be an incongruity between the actual result and the normal or expected result. Amazon announced yesterday a line of 'frustration-free packaging'. Retailers usually demand that manufactures make these large packages for small items (e.g. memory cards, CDs, small electronics) to reduce the ease of shoplifting. Since Amazon.com does not tend to have this kind of a problem and having a fair amount of marketing/retail muscle itself is trying to get manufactures to really reduce the amount of materials needed. Amazon itself has been faulted in the past for using large boxes with a pile of air-filled plastics sacs to ship small items, though in some defense there can be an economical factor regarding stocking only a few standard sizes of boxes whereas multiple sets would increase handling costs to a degree much higher than the postage saved.

Male bonding: Half a dozen guys glued to a TV watching football.

This weekend a couple of friends from California whom I had previously met while on the hash bus tour in Australia came to the Tampa area to visit family this weekend. They couldn't make the has Saturday, which was a shiggy-fest near a local racetrack that most of us never knew existed, but they did come by for a little while on Sunday. Python, Fluffer, and Fluffer's brother picked me up at my house Sunday and we went over to Barnacle's sports bar to watch the last half of the Bucs football game. Barnacle's is locally famous for having over 450 television screens on all the time and most were tuned to the game. The first part was pretty bad I heard with the Bucs down by a significant amount, however in the final quarter they had a huge comeback and ended up winning. I had a great time just chatting away, though Python kept stealing away to feed the lobster catching machine (like what you see in every Wal-Mart, though with stuff animals) though ended up empty handed. After the game we hung out at my place for a while, had a few beers and played some pool while Fluffer's brother played Golden-T on the arcade machine. It was nice to have had a chance to see them again and catch up for a bit, so I'm looking forward to the Inter-Americas event in Colorado next September.

All in all its another brick from the wall.

I had to go by my old USF house house to meet a contractor regarding window replacements and to fix an issue with one of the tenant's sinks and decided to run by campus to check out the new student center. The new building is fairly grand and will be quite the focal point for campus activities. It has a 3-4 story atrium with modern rooms, displays and a great layout that I wish was available when I attended the university. I did get in a couple of shots of the old building being demolished and could even see the remains of some of the rooms in which I use to hide away to study. I rarely get a chance to visit the campus any more, but it is nice to walk through on occasion.

Have you ever wondered why aquarium water tastes funny?

Kristen was able to get a couple of passes to the opening of a renovated/updated area called "Ocean Commotion" in the Florida Aquarium. Through her work with City of Tampa Riverwalk project, she has been in touch with many of the downtown businesses and attractions and knows many of the associated marketing people. We arrived a little early and had name tags waiting for us as we walked around for a little while. There was an open bar available along with hor d'ourves also being served as we sat around and enjoyed the exhibits in relative solitude. The opening itself didn't take very long with a relatively minor showing as the event was in likely competition with the baseball playoff game that evening; which was mentioned several times in the brief speeches.

There were not any really huge changes as I didn't recognize any additional exhibits as this seemed to be more of a rebranding or minor renovation than anything significant. The redesign, however was quite nice and I enjoyed the more vibrant colors where previously it was a fairly dark area. The public thoroughfare was completely refurbished along with a new theme; something along the lines of a voting for a favorite animated character at the end of the walk through which there were various interpretative displays conveying different characters. While it was obviously geared towards children, my anecdotal experience with kids has me guess that they really are not so interested in that kind of theme. Having interactive displays is great, but they really are not going to go much more in depth than pushing a few buttons to see a change and won't really process a lot out of it. I'd be surprised of anyone ever pays attention to the theme of voting for a character other than parents that are dragging kids along and specifically directing their attention to it in a "Here honey, you need to come here and enter your vote. Do it right now I tell you!" The overall increase in visual and interactive displays will appeal to a young audience that would more appreciate the color and technology; 'oh look, something shiny!' I would love to see a display that actually has a real, serious FAQ list near each display, or just one collection per section. Something like a list regarding SCUBA diving for the shows or basic elements of each species would be useful for those interested in taking the time to learn more but not wanting/remembering to google when they get home. I did like the new exhibit and plan to continue the membership I've had at the Fl Aquarium for the past few years. My new camera hasn't come in yet, but when it does I may try to find a time in the late afternoon before closing to bring it out with a tripod and get in some decent shots. I have a new wide angle lens coming in as well, so hopefully my future panoramic shots will require less stitching, but with applications such as photosynth becoming more popular, it might not be necessary.

Is the Cesarean Section an historic district in Rome?

While reading some travel forums for idea of next year's trip, I found a post of a great deal from NYC to Rome for ~$320 round-trip. I had been planning on doing Peru and Ecuador next year, but now looks I'll either have to move it or squeeze in another trip. I have now booked the flight and leave NYC April 28 and return May 12. I'll probably add an extra day or so to play in New York so I can take in some shows, see sites, etc, so this will probably end up being a 17-18 day trip. This will be my first trip to Europe, so I'm excited about the possibilities. Over the next few weeks I'll start making plans and seeing what is out there. I need to check out travel opportunities to places such as Athens and Paris (which I'd definitely think I'd like to spend a couple of days to get to the Normandy beaches). Overall I travel cheap and light, so hopefully the entire trip would cost $1500-$2000with airfare, but we'll see if that is realistic. This year's New Zealand / Australia trip was a bit expensive because a lot of specialty events/activities (bungee jumping, liveaboard SCUBA trip, etc) and a lot of flights (12-14 different legs). If anyone has insights or ideas, then definitely let me know!

Squirt guns don't soak people; people soak people.

One of the really fun annual hash run events is the Super Soaker trail. Everyone is instructed to bring a water gun and it is fun to see the array of water weaponry that shows up. This year the trail and on-after party was at Dab's house north of Tampa. Trail was a nice mix of terrain and there were several stops with water to allow reloading of ammo as well as stashes of water balloons for impromptu ambush attacks.

If a man is talking in the woods and no woman hears him, is he still wrong?

For the weekend Kristen and I headed to the FL/GA border for a campout with the hashers. This was a new site, but it seemed to be a lot further than I thought and took quite a bit of traveling. We took up the daiquiri machine for its first realy workout and it was quite the hit! The campground was lacking a bit, especially hookups for the kitchen area, but we made do and had a good time seeing some old friends and generally just having a good time.

On the batting end of a no-hitter.

After attending a friend's birthday dinner at Wild Wings (my favorite place ever to eat from Charleston that now has a location in Tampa), we headed to another bar to listen to Stormbringer, one of Kristen's favorite cover bands that she has followed for years. As I haven't been in a long while, we headed to Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM Studios) Saturday at Disney last weekend to putz around. Even though it was a Saturday, there really were not too many lines. The stunt car show, which I have never seen, wasn't operating, however we were able to take in many of the other activities such as the Indy stunt show, Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, and a few rides on the Tower of Terror; so overall a typical park day. I finally sent in my broken camera lens this week, so hopefully I'll get it back sometime in the near future. I'd really like to play with HDR photography as well as Photosynth and make some photo point clouds of places such as a theme park in the near future. Kristen has been deal with a lot of stress as she gets overloaded with work projects, so tonight I took her out to dinner at the Jerk Hut and the local fun park to do some racing and batting to slam out some tension. We took in a few laps of the go kart and about a hundred pitchs in the cage and felt much better.

Life in the fast lane

Here it comes!

There it goes!

What this explosion needs, is a little more cowbell.