How not to remove Palm Trees

I cut down two 30 foot tall palm trees in my yard about 3 months ago. It was a huge amount of work, but dealing with the palm fronds and stumps is turning out to be even more work. I am able to get a small amount taken away each week with the trash, but at this rate it may take a year to remove the two trees. Plus, I've got at least one more tree that needs to be cut down before it knocks down my fence. I got one estimate on removing what's already down and it was around $500 which seemed a little too much. I may need to just rent a dumpster and get as much of it hauled away as possible. Those are $75 each.

First black coach in Super Bowl

I don't get why Lovie Smith is the first black coach in the Super Bowl. Tony Dungy is also black, and the Super Bowl starts at the same time for both of them, so aren't they both the first black coach in the Super Bowl. It seems ridiculous that because the Bears game ended first that Lovie Smith is first and Tony Dungy is second. It makes no sense. It's about the Super Bowl, not which team was in first.

Steve Nash not an all star starter

How can Steve Nash not be a starter in the all star game? He won the MVP award the past two years and his team is one of the top two this year. No starters from Dallas or Phoenix. I think the fan voting is a little off this year. Tracy McGrady is a great player, but I don't think he deserves to start this year. And Shaq? Not even close. Injured most of the season, with lower productivity anyway.

slow blogging week

I have had a busy week at work and haven't been keeping up as well with my blogging. I still haven't gotten around to either of those 5 things memes I'm supposed to do. Five things people don't know about me and my five favorite movies are the ones I need to do. Very far behind. Maybe tomorrow...

Backing up

I'm waiting to get the file recovery software today so I can try to salvage what's on my laptop's hard drive. I hope that goes well, but you never know. What I really need to do is have a good system in place to back up my files regularly. I've got too many 300 adn 400 GB drives which are practically full and I'm not doing any regular backups. Greg Keene at TechDigs.net does an extensive job laying out the options for backing up your files when you've got lots of files. It's a little daunting, but something has to be done, in my case. It's no fun to lose your files when your drive goes bad.

Burning CDs

I'm using my laptop to burn 16 CDs to give out in class tonight. It's going to take about 45 minutes to do it. Years ago, at Apple, I had access to the first commercial CD writer, made by Kodak. It cost $10,000 and took 45 minutes to write a blank CD, which had less capacity than CDs do now. Those blanks were $10 each, so when you had a write error, it was a little more painful than it is today. The CD Writer was also huge -- bigger than two VCRs are today. Now, of course, CD-RW drives cost very little and come with almost every computer. Blanks are around 10 cents each. Quite a difference. People sometimes say that CDs aren't reliable as archival media, but I still have the CDs I made in 1993 and they are still working. Of course, I didn't leave them in the sun or flip them around, so they are in good shape.

Bush plan to reduce gas consumption

I'm a little skeptical of President Bush's plan to reduce the amount of gasoline used by 20% in 10 years. Not that it can't be done, but I think this guy and his buddies are the same group who lowered clean air standards and did nothing to put pressure on US automakers to improve gas mileage. If it wasn't for Toyota and Honda, I don't think any of the US carmakers would be selling hybrid cars or looking into electric cars. We'll see what happens. It would certainly be a good thing. Maybe car sharing, like they are doing in the Bay Area, would be a good thing to promote. There are three car sharing companies in San Francisco, which is pretty impressive. I don't think car sharing is viable everywhere, but it does look like a way to save money. I'd just like some kind of mass transit where I live, something that seems unlikely to happen.

Scrivener for OS X

It does seem that there are quite a few outliners/word processors/note-taking/clip management applications for the Mac. I have trouble keeping up with them and don't seem to get around to spending enough time with new ones to change what I'm working with. Scrivener 1.0 was released yesterday and it has some unique features. In addition to the full screen, distraction-free mode which has become popular in order to help people focus on writing and not on browsing the web or checking email, it has a kind of note card mode which allows you to organize your thoughts on a project and view them on a virtual corkboard. I'm not clear on what kind of functionality you get with this, but it's worth a look.

Lane Kiffin new Raiders coach - bad career move

The Raiders have their guy - Lane Kiffin from USC. He's younger than nine current players and the youngest coach in the modern era of pro football, 31 years old. I guess he doesn't subscribe to the Sporting News, which has a scary looking picture of his new boss on the current cover. I don't know if Lane Kiffin is going to fix the problems facing the Raiders. He's got to improve their offense, but after the bed and breakfast guy, that shouldn't be too hard to do. I just wonder how hard it will be for him to get guys like Randy Moss and Jerry Porter to play hard for him. There are just too many knuckleheads on the Raiders. I just hope he's got an out clause in his five year contract.

Pechanga Comedy Club

The local casino here in Temecula -- Pechanga -- is opening up a branch of the Improv comedy club in March. Shows will cost $20 and it might be fun. I am not familiar with any of the names on the list of performers, but they are up and coming talents, not stars. If they were already stars, they would be perfoming in the theater, along with the Moody Blues and the Fab Four. Actually, not all of the performers are on the county fair circuit. The Chinese Acrobats and David Copperfield are showing up next month. Not on the same day.

Parcells retires, AP publishes first draft

Bill Parcells retired from coaching today. I'm surprised he lasted a whole season with Terrell Owens, who should be the next to go. Looks like the Associated Press was in a rush to be first with the story, as they included the following two paragraphs:

Parcells won two Super Bowls with the Giants. He came to Dallas four seasons ago energized by the challenge of restoring glory to "America's Team." He went 34-32 and definitely left the Cowboys better than he found them, but his tenure ultimately may be remembered for the lack of a playoff victory.

He came to Dallas four seasons ago energized by the challenge of restoring glory to "America's Team." While he definitely left the Cowboys better than he found them, his tenure ultimately may be remembered for the lack of a playoff victory.

How about a little proofreading before you press the Publish button?

Some of the fault lies with CNNSi, who published the story as-is. ESPN and SFGate edited the AP text so the duplication isn't there.

Sunday football

I was hoping to see the Colts against the Saints in the Super Bowl, but I'm at least half wrong. And it's not looking good for the Colts. I think the weather worked against the Saints a little bit, but not enough to change the outcome. I'd like to see the Colts come back in the second game and make it competitive. It's going to be tough to outcoach Bill Bellichick however. If the Patriots make it to the Super Bowl, I think they would be the favorites considering their experience.

Bottleneck blog -- 458 comments

The LA Times/Steve Lopez started a blog about LA Traffic last week -- the Bottleneck blog. There are 3 posts now, but the first one has 458 comments! I wish I had that kind of interaction on one of my blogs. Obviously traffic in LA is a serious issue for just about anyone who lives or works there. An entire page of the comments on the Bottleneck blog was published in today's paper. Some were good. A few were weird or ridiculous, but it's pretty clear that something has to be done about traffic and maybe the blog will lead to some change, either in transportation or in who gets elected.