Love of Traveling

As you probably know, I love traveling. I realized the other day one of the things I love most about traveling is the smells of the place I am visiting. Each place has its unique smells, whether it is the food, the trees/flowers, traffic, or stores. Noticing those differences makes traveling, for me, a very fun experience.

I think this also stems from the fact that smell is so closely linked with memory in our brains, so anytime I smell something that I experienced in another part of the world, I am quickly transported back to that location and I almost get to relive those fun times again.

Mini-Vacation

I am currently in the beautiful city of San Diego, CA. My parents were going to be down here this week and I was fortunate to get 5 days off so I could spend some time with them.

I have been to San Diego before but not since moving to California. We are getting to check out a lot of different areas of the city. Plus I am enjoying this time off after a busy holiday season at Target.

Stay up to date with my trip by following my Twitter feed.

Pizza and Wine

Really interesting blog post about pairing wine with pizza over at Dr. Vino. Apparently Italians don't drink wine with pizza.

It says that Pizza and Beer is a much more common and sacred pairing, which is understandable, but I don't necessarily understand the aversion to matching a good wine with pizza. A lot of popular Italian foods (and other foods from around the world) contain a mixture of three basic ingredients, pasta/bread, cheese/dairy, tomato. This also happens to be one of my justifications for eating my mac 'n cheese with ketchup. But if you look at everything from nachos with salsa to spaghetti with parmesan cheese they all contain these ingredients.

Therefore, if you drink wine with your favorite Italian pasta dish, it shouldn't be that far of a stretch to drink wine with a pizza.

Nothing Good Happens After 2AM

One of my favorite Shows, How I Met Your Mother has an episode in Season 1 that is entitled "Nothing Good Happens After 2AM". I was watching part of it last night (well before 2AM) and it got me thinking.

Assuming this rule is true, when during the late night/early morning does this rule cease to apply?

Is it for the rest of the day, allowing only 2 hours of a day that good things can happen?
Is there another hour of the morning that ends to time period?
Does the time vary throughout the year, based on the rising of the sun?
Is it based on when you go to bed and then wake up?

I think this rule needs a little tweaking to accommodate an end time where good things can start happening again.

A Mistake

So, I made a mistake last night. Now don't get the wrong idea, I make them all the time, but I think this one will stick out for a while.

I was closing my store last night, and letting all my team members out. Everything was normal, I waited around for a couple minutes to make sure my team members left alright. I headed over to a friend's house where there was a small New Year's party going on. About 5 minutes before midnight I got a phone call from someone in security at my store. Apparently I had locked the doors and left the store with one of my team members still inside all alone.

I obviously waited till after the ball dropped, but I headed back to my store to lock the store back up and reset the alarm (as he had left through one of the fire exits).

Whoooops.

High Speed Rail and Fresno

I haven't talked about High Speed Rail for a while, so it is time again. The California High Speed Rail Blog has had a few interesting articles recently about one of the first steps for the CAHSR, the Central Valley Test Track Part 1. This is basically a test track that will eventually be a part of the train route through the valley helping the HSR authority test trains, develop rules and regulations, and develop strategies for technical issues such as seismic activity and any route sharing that might exist. Part 2 proposes some ideas more specifically to the route of the test track (and then eventually the actual route with stations, etc.).

A couple of thoughts on this:

• Transit planning is very interesting to me, especially since I am learning a lot as I read some of these articles
• Long term planning is both extraordinarily important and difficult.
• Some of these people making these plans (especially related to personal vehicle travel) seem to be on the wrong path
• I think (and hope) train travel will become as commonplace here (especially in California) as it is in Europe
• These transit projects will require a lot of planning and work to get completed, and it will be very exciting to see all the changes it will bring.

Here are some other articles (8.2mb pdf, and 20.15mb pdf)  about the future of transportatin in the valley and Fresno region.

My Car

So it is good and bad to have a car that VERY few other people have in your city.

It is good because people can spot you pretty easily.
It is bad because people can spot you pretty easily.

It is funny because when your friends see one of the 2 or 3 other cars that are the same as yours, they think its you.

My friends ask me all the time whether I was here or there at a certain time a few days ago. I get text messages asking me how the food at Taco Bell is, when I'm sitting at home eating ice cream.

Christmas Music

Luke Mundy's posts on Christmas Music have had me thinking a lot about Christmas music in general.

Christmas music is one of these two things:

1. Music about the true meaning of Christmas (the birth of Jesus)
2. Holiday music that is normally associated with the season

Christmas music can be one of these or both, but it is much easier to make new music from the first category. Of course almost every musical artist has done some rendition of a classic Christmas tune, which is relatively easy, but this isn't creating new music (in this situation).

I think when most people think of Christmas music they think of the second category, even though the specific songs might fit in the first category. If you were to write a song about the birth of Jesus that no one had heard before it would unlikely be considered a Christmas song by most people until it reached that degree of holiday association.

This makes it hard then to enter the Christmas music market. It is possible with such pop songs turned Christmas classics such as Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You" and The Beach Boys "Little Saint Nick", but very difficult.

So, I think my whole point is I wish all of you musicians out there the best of luck with creating new Christmas music, especially if it fits in the first category.

Book

I started reading a new book today (to join the other 2 or 3 books I am currently in the middle of reading). Thanks to Mike S for lending me the book.

The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil.

I love reading that challenges you, makes you think, and gives you an exercise in the abstract. While not necessarily each of these things occur in every book I read, I do enjoy these different things.

I've only read the prologue so far, but it is a book about the future of computers, artificial intelligence, and the possibility of these thinking "beings" being conscious.

I hope it to be a good read.