I must admit I’ve never been a huge fan of Valentine’s day, having been “reinvented” in the 19th century by a stationary store owner. I’m a bigger fan of its alter ego, Singles Awareness Day. In any case, it is yet another Margarita Friday. It is back at one of its primary haunts, Teala’s. Christina always makes an excellent Margarita and the food is good and reasonably priced. How did I spend my Valentine’s day? At Corkscrew, a local wine bar (which now serves grub). And the Houston Chronicle took a photo of yours truly to prove it. Happy Margarita Friday!

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Ok, I feel I need to do drivers and humanity at large a service. Allow me to translate the meaning of the ubiquitous “Exit Only” phraseology present everywhere on highway signage to soccer moms, people yapping on the phone, or perhaps using this reading device whilst driving an 8 ton Cataract Escapade or your weapon-of-mass-planet-and-brain-cell-destruction of choice.

The phrase “Exit Only” apparently is transmogrified in many clueless drivers’ minds as “Only Exit.” I don’t know why dyslexic interpretation of street signs is so pervasive; perhaps that’s another topic of research entirely (maybe I’ll apply for a research grant to research stupidity on roadways).

Anyway, “Exit Only,” much to the dismay of many, actually means just that, Exit Only. That means the lane designated thusly is, you guessed it, an exit only!! Wow! It does not mean, to the consternation of many drivers, the only exit. So if you see a two lane exit and the right lane is designated “Exit Only,” it is not necessary to panic, drop your phone, beer, bluetooth headgear or hairdryer, and move your big ass vehicle into my lane to exit. You can stay right where you are, please.

I hope I’ve cleared that up for good.

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I had to really do a double take and make sure I wasn’t on a parody website of Amazon.com when I saw this. What’s next, a steering wheel attached dinner tray? Click to take a closer look:

That’s not the best part – you’ve got to visit the Amazon product page for this to get a load of the comments. I haven’t laughed this hard in months. Here are a few:

This product far exceeds my expectations. I was not only able to read a book while driving, but with my free hands I was able to talk on my cell phone, while also sipping on my latte! For some reason, everyone keeps honking at me and flipping me off, but it doesn’t matter, because I am too engrossed in my reading to care. I hope this comes back into stock, my 16 year old cousin could really use one.

I bought this item 6 months ago and its great. I can read while driving and best of all, I can move it to a new car everytime i crash my current one. So far, I’ve gone through 5 cars in 6 months, and this thing attaches to every steering wheel. My insurance company is threatening to drop me, but without this item, I simply wouldn’t be able to fill out my insurance form while driving. Too bad about the small type on their contracts, tho. Now I’ll need a 6th car!

Great for use as a music stand. It holds sheet music and allows me to use both hands to play my guitar while driving down the interstate. There was a lot of glare through the glass from outside but I was able to fix that by spray painting all my windows black. I found I could navigate using my iphone google maps while practicing my guitar. Highly recommended. I’ll use it in all my cars.

I love to read and I drive a lot for work, but it’s not a standard automobile. Does anybody know if this will fit a regulation school bus steering wheel?

This product works great, but one word of caution. The Easy Reader WILL NOT fit on a motorcycle’s steering assembly. The device fails to hold down the pages and rattles like crazy at any speed over 5 mph. Guess we’ll have to wait for a motorbike version to come out.

This product is absolutely marvelous! I never thought I would ever finish the new Harry Potter book, but this helped out TREMENDOUSLY! Not only that, it also holds my Hustlers. So now I have a free hand to reach into the glove box, and get out a kleenex! It would be a lot better if I was ambidextrous. But, that’s okay! Thanks to the Easy Reader, I am now fluent in turbo-tossing! Thanks again!

It’s like a touch of home in my car, I have a place to put my bathroom reading materials and a beer, all in convenient view of the road. No more having to fumble around in the passenger foot rest at high speeds looking for the 40 oz I just dropped. No more pages sticking to my hands while driving.

This has worked so well, I’ve bought one for each one of the eight cars I’ve had in the past 7 months.

Before I had to steer with my knees in order to turn the page. After buying this, I still steer with my knees, but I use my hands to adjust the on my homemade beer helmet! Never did I think drinking and driving could be so fun and educational!

Wow. I predict a sharp increase in the number of future Darwin Award nominees.

An extra star for cleaning out the gene pool.

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Finally Gary has capitulated . . . we now have free wireless Internet at Onion Creek. They turn it off at 4 pm everyday but luckily my encrypted proxy technique I use whenever I’m on an open WAP circumvents it (it appears they only shut off port 80 when they stop providing access). So I’m sipping a delicious latte and enjoying the gorgeous weather and writing this post (of course it would even be better sipping a latte while at the controls of a twin turbojet aircraft).

If you want to practice your METAR decoding, here is the current weather:

KHOU 132153Z 00000KT 10SM CLR 16/M03 A3008 RMK AO2 SLP191 T01611033

Read my previous article on flying to get hints on how to decode this. Until next time, back to my latte (and PHP development framework research) . . . .

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After some painstaking effort at hacking style sheets and fixing a lot of broken template code, my blog has a new look! Let me know what you think. Thanks!

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(UPDATE 3) – This is basically a completion of the update 2 where I finish the pictures’ detailed descriptions and decode some of the other aviation gobbledygook such as the weather prognosis, etc. Below you’ll find all the images have been re-uploaded in much higher resolution, and I’ve inserted more detailed comments on each image. I even start to dive into some detail about the latest advances in avionics and related posts deciphering what each thing is on the various screens.

Wow what gorgeous weather we’re having down here in Houston these days. My sincere condolences go out to those who have suffered loss or hardship from the severe weather in neighboring states.

I’m going flying this morning with my long-time friend Erik to take advantage of the weather. I’ll post an update when I return to terra firma; for now here is the weather synopsis:

METAR KSGR 081253Z 13005KT 10SM CLR 08/02 A2999 RMK AO2 SLP166 T00780017
KHOU 19nm E 081253Z 14004KT 10SM SCT250 08/02 A3000 RMK AO2 SLP163 T00780017

So the above is called a METAR which is basically an acronym for “message d’observation météorologique régulière pour l’aviation” which is roughly translated into routine aviation weather observations. Here we see at KSGR (Sugarland airport) on the 8th at 1253 Zulu time (GMT, or 653 am local time) there are winds blowing from 130 (SE) at 5 knots, skies are clear, the temperature is 8 degrees Celsius and the dew points is 2 degrees Celsius, the barometric pressure is 29.99 inches Hg, the facility has an automated precipitation sensor, sea level pressure is 1016.6 millibars and the temperature in Celsius is 7.8 degrees and dew point is 1.7 degrees. The nearby METAR for Hobby Airport is an exercise left for the reader.

TAF KSGR 081128Z 081212 VRB04KT P6SM SKC FM1500 15008KT P6SM SKC FM1800 19013KT P6SM FEW250 FM2100 22013KT P6SM SCT250 FM0100 25007KT P6SM SCT250 FM0600 34007KT P6SM SKC
KHOU
19nm E 081128Z 081212 VRB04KT P6SM SKC FM1500 15008KT P6SM SKC FM1800 19013KT P6SM FEW250 FM2100 22013KT P6SM SCT250 FM0000 23008KT P6SM SCT250 FM0600 35007KT P6SM SKC

Above we have what is called the TAF or Terminal Aerodrome Forecast. This TAF basically says that it was issued for KSGR at 1128 Zulu on Feb 8 and is valid from 1200 Zulu on the 8th until 1200 Zulu the following day. Starting at 1200 Zulu the winds are forecast to be variable at 4 knots and visibility is 6 statute miles plus. Starting at 1500 Zulu, the winds are forecast to be blowing from 150 at 8 knots with 6 miles plus visibility and clear skies. From 1800 Zulu, winds are from 190 at 13 knots, 6 miles visibility and it will be partly cloudy with the cloud layer at 25,000 feet. The rest if the TAF is an exercise left for the reader.

(UPDATE)

So I’ve returned to earth after our jaunt around southeast Texas looking for a place to get an omelette. We were unsuccessful in that endeavor and ended up eating at Denny’s after we returned. Some good pictures from the voyage are below. Click on each picture to zoom in and read more information about it.

Here we’ve taken off and climb to about 2,500 MSL (Mean Sea Level as opposed to AGL – Above Ground Level).

Here we’ve spotted a plane flying at approximately our altitude; we’ve already seen it on the display and follow that up with finding it outside. No, that’s not a giant red circle in the sky; I’ve highlighted it to make plane spotting a simple task for the reader. Note that spotting planes in the air is not that easy.

Here we can make out that it’s a Mooney, most like a Bravo. Basically the general rules for planes flying VFR (Visual Flight Rules) are that planes flying at 3,000 AGL or above with courses (ground track) flown between 0 and 179 are to fly even thousands plus 500 feet; planes flying between 180 and 359 are to fly odd thousands plus 500 feet. For example, if our heading is 310, then proper altitudes for us would be 3,500, 5,500, 7,500, 9,500 and so on. Aircraft under IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) fly on the thousands, i.e., 3,000, 5,000, 7,000, etc. This principle is known as the hemispherical rule. Note there are additional rules that govern altitudes that are beyond the scope of this post.

You can see here that avionics have certainly changed over the years. This cockpit is more sophisticated than a 10 year old 747 jetliner. In the vernacular of aviation, this is known as a “glass cockpit” as opposed to a “steam gauge” or “six pack” cockpit.

Here I’ve taken an up-close picture of the primary flight display. It presents all the information you need in one place. The ticker tape to the left is indicated air speed in knots (118) and our true air speed (124). The right tape is our altitude (2,720 ft MSL), our dialed-in altitude bug (2,500 which can be used to salve the auto pilot) as well as ascent or descent in feet per minute (vertical speed) and the dialed-in barometric pressure (used to determine altitude – here 30.02 inches Hg). The center shows us our current attitude (vs. the horizon). Below all that is a compass rose with a wealth of information superimposed. This is called the Horizon Situation Indicator (HSI). On our display you can see our current heading is 308 (north is 360 and south is 180, as expected). The heading bug, or heading we dial in for reference (that can be used to slave the auto pilot) is 313. Our course that we’ve laid into the GPS (KSGR -D-> 60R) for our flight is 328. Our actual track over the ground (which differs from heading due to wind) is approximately 325. Other miscellaneous information displayed includes the outside temperature (56 °F) and nearest airports (vitally important information in case one’s engine were to stop running).

Here is the Multi Function Display. It also provides an amazing amount of information. A major advantage of this technology is situational awareness. A drawback is how much a pilot may keep his eyes inside the cockpit watching the pretty pictures and not looking outside. Here we can see the plane superimposed on a map. The orientation of the map is track up (the track is our track over the ground). You can see the plane itself is skewed to the track due to a large crosswind (displayed on the MFD as 38 knots!). The large megenta line is our dialed in course. The dashed arrow is the track vector showing our future track and position in 1 minute (selectable). The two diamonds are part of the Traffic Awareness System (TAWS) and are actually two departing aircraft from Hobby Airport (KHOU). It displays their vector track with solid white lines and their current altitude relative to ours (2,000 and 1,500 feet above us in this case). Other information displayed includes terrain (the teepee looking artifacts are towers), highways (Highway 290 and Highway 6 here), and the terminal area surrounding Houston depicted in Cyan (here known as class B airspace). There are also Victor Airways displayed (V194, V15, V571, and V574).

Here we’re overflying the airport to identify the way the winds are blowing. We have a good idea already since we’ve got broadcast automated weather information for the area (plus information on current wind vector and speed at our altitude is displayed in the cockpit but that can be drastically different from the winds on the ground resulting in dangerous shear) , but this is a non-controlled airport (i.e., it doesn’t have a control tower) and you don’t want to be caught flying downwind on a short runway (you always land into a head wind if possible). If you’ve always wanted to know what the meaning behind runway numbers is, they basically equal the compass heading of the runway divided by 10. So here we see runway 35, which basically means it has a compass heading of 350, which is 10 degrees west of due north. The opposite end of the runway is consequently 17. In this case the winds are blowing almost directly down the runway, or from 170. Also note that meteorologists always describe wind direction by the direction from which the wind is blowing; i.e., northerly winds are winds from the north. It also makes it easy to pick which ruway you’re using. If the wind is 170, then you know you should be landing on runway 17.

Now that we’ve identified the runway direction, we enter what is called the traffic pattern. While it’s described for each airport, the default traffic pattern is what is called a left hand pattern. Below is an excellent image of what construes the traffic pattern from the wikipedia article on the subject. The original image is available here.

Now here we’re in the “short final” phase of flight.

This guy was practicing touch and go landings. He probably did at least 20 while we were present. This airport is a little tricky since there are no taxiways so you have to “back taxi” down the runway. Aircraft separation is maintained on the Unicom frequency where each aircraft announces their position, phase of flight, intentions and the target airport (many nearby airports share the same frequency, so an example in our case would be, “Navasota, Skyhawk 1615 alpha turning base for runway one seven, Navasota.”)

Well we never could find a place to eat within walking distance so we resume with a take off roll after hanging out at the airport for a short bit.

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It is the year of the rat. I’m sure you know that by now. Wikipedia has a good article on this zodiac sign here. Happy New Year!

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Well, happy February 2008! To those that know me, I used January to detox, i.e., not drink. Not a single drop (I’m talking CH₂H₅OH here). My last drink before tonight was new year’s toast, a strike after midnight January 1.

I did this for a lot of reasons, but primarily because December was the month of lushness. My birthday was the first week of December; with the many holidays thereafter, parties, etc., the drinking was progressing at an accelerated rate. I hadn’t had any major problems or any single catalyst to decide I was going to take January off, just the simple notion of taking a break.

What a great break it was. Luckily, it was a lot easier to abstain than I ever thought (and being of German and French lineage, this was a good thing). The interesting thing was I never had a real compulsion to drink, even amongst the merriment of margarita friday and other merry gatherings with my friends. I have good friends, so they were supportive of my decision and never thought twice about it (they even congratulated me on my sticking to my personal goal).

I really never thought anything of it. Until January 11. All the sudden, it hit me. Where was I getting all this energy? Why wasn’t I suffering from the usual mid-afternoon coma during the week? Why was my mental acuity on high alert and why was I able to focus on tasks so easily? Why did I have energy levels I hadn’t had since adolescence? BAM! It hit me. No booze! Wow. It never really occurred to me how profound a simple decision would be in terms of its effect. I cannot possibly overstate how much not drinking for a month improved my sleep, increased my energy, elevated my mood, and dozens of other positive side effects.

A myriad of other benefits resulted from my abstinence. I took back up with vigor hobbies I hadn’t paid adequate attention to, namely musical composition and cooking. My creativity flourished. I also had the energy and focus to follow up on many projects I had promised to get done for many months. This blog was one of those projects. I finally finished the web application for scoring and tracking scores for my parents’ bridge league, which I promised to get done a year earlier. Additionally, my business partner, Philip, joined me in abstaining which allowed us collectively to begin 2008 on a good note. Given the fact that I dissolved my previous business relationship and lost a huge amount of momentum in 2007, this is a good thing indeed. The other main benefit is not spending ridiculous amounts of $$$$ on booze. On average, during the last 3 years, I could have financed an Aston Martin or a new plane with bar tabs – this is no joke. It certainly makes you reevaluate your priorities.

In any case, I “celebrated” my making it through January with a couple of beers during happy hour and a glass of wine with dinner tonight. That compares to my typical 2007 Friday happy hour imbibing margaritas, consuming about a fifth of tequila in the process (that’s just happy hour, mind you). The good thing is I probably won’t have another drink for a week or two. I really don’t have any desire to at this point.

In the end, I found that booze was getting between me and the goals I had set for myself. It was costing me lots of money (exacerbated by the opportunity cost incurred by alternate projects for which that money could have been used), energy, and generally was keeping me from being at the top of my game.

I would say to anyone who’s feeling malaise or feeling they’re not achieving the goals that they’ve set for themselves (or just wonder where the hell a thousand bucks or more disappears ever few weeks) they may want to try getting off the sauce for a month. Make it a personal challenge. If you can do it, you can do anything; you’ll feel like you can do anything. If your friends give you shit about it or try to influence you with peer pressure, tell them to screw off; they’re not really your friends.

I certainly have no prejudice against drinking or those who drink; I’ve faced alcoholism front and center in my family on more than one occasion – it is an insidious disease. I hope this will be construed to be a positive message; that is my intent. I bid you adieu for the time being, since I’ve got an 8:30 tee time tomorrow morning, where I hope to pursue another one of my hobbies with vigor, clarity of purpose, and joy.

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All I gotta say is, we threw down some serious groceries tonight! Paul and I cooked for a solid 5 and a half hours, both running 120% speed. Thing is, we’ve got about 2 more hours full speed cooking tomorrow, so we’ll be getting to Reggie’s a little early, schedule permitting. So what is the MF menu exactly?

For conidemento, or accoutrement, we have:

• roasted, simmered tomato jalapeño salsa
• fresh chopped tomato serrano salsa
• fresh chopped tomato habanero salsa
• roasted tomatillo serrano salsa
• roasted tomatillo chipotle salsa
• fresh guacamole
• plantian chips with chimichurri (yes a little further south but what the hell)
• sweet potato chips, dusted with chipotle salt
• chihuahua cheese
• queso fresco
• tortillas de mais (corn tortillas)
• fresh romaine lettuce
• cremini and shiitake mushrooms
• freshly made tortilla chips

For starters, appetizers, side dishes and main dishes:

• ripe plantain empanadas with cheese filling
• picadillo stuffed jalapeños (chiles jalapeños rellenos de picadillo)
• fresh enchilada suiza
• shredded poached chicken in seasoned broth for tacos
• freshly grilled flank steak (carne asada) with spicy ancho seasoning paste
• chile rellenos (poblano) stuffed with chorizo and queso fresco in a tequila lime sauce

I’m sure there are things I’ve missed. The general motif is kind of like a taco bar (kind of like a bruschetta bar party if you’ve ever done one of those – and that word, just like chipotle, is almost always mispronounced; it’s bruce-KETTA, not brooshetta, bershetta, broshitta or any other such nonsense). We’ve basically got three proteins, chargrilled beef, shredded poached chicken and roasted pork. These can be served up in warm, soft tortillas with a myriad of choice ingredients and condiments as you so please. The only exception would be the chile rellenos, enchiladas suiza and empanadas.

I’ve got some pictures of our preparations this evening for your enjoyment. Click on the links to get the full pic and description:

• Poaching Chicken
• Decimated Sausage
• Tacos
• A vertible garden!
• Eating a Habanero
• Ancho Chiles
• Spooge
• Poblano Rajas
• the “flip”
• Roasting Serranos
• Suiza Beginnings
• Pollo y Spooge
• No. 10 can of tomatoes
• Fresh Whipped Cream
• Let them eat cake!
• You can’t stop me!!
• Cooling Suiza

Ok as you can see it’s very late and there is much to do tomorrow. I look forward to seeing all you MF-ers out there and hope you enjoy the vittles as much as I’ve enjoyed making them!

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Well it’s really late and I need to get to bed. My sous-chef de cuisine, Paul, was out of pocket tonight since he hasn’t been feeling well lately. In addition, I whittled away lots of time working on a remote web caching proxy server I set up (so I can surf and conduct my affairs privately online when I’m on an open, unsecured WAP; people have no idea how easy it is to get all their website account passwords, email passwords, etc. on open wifi hotspots – I’ll eventually make this available to others), and on a bridge scoring and reporting web application I wrote for my father’s bridge league – yes very exciting stuff indeed. In any case, Paul will be here tomorrow early and we’ll get a lot of stuff done, so no need to worry.

Since all this technology work makes a guy hungry, I poached up some chicken breast, made a quick guacamole by fork crushing a ripe avocado with yesterday’s Chopped Tomato and Serrano Salsa and some extra garlic and adding a little lime juice. To that I added some red romaine lettuce, grated chihuahua cheese and the aforementioned salsa and threw it on some steamed corn tacos and commenced hodgering (yes that’s a word my family has used forever, so I added it to urbandictionary.com myself – see here).

Take a look at the mess of ingredients for this feast on my cutting board (excuse the crappy ass phone pic):

In any case, I’m going to check out and go to bed now. I’m listening to one of my other favorite Internet radio stations, BeatBlender from SomaFM as I type this, but I think the DJ is getting a little whiff of the crack pipe this late at night.

Look for tomorrow’s progress!

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