OK, This Has Gotta Stop.

Four days, 63 earthquakes. This is especially disturbing when you're sick in bed with the flu, as I am. There's only one thing happening more frequently -- the San Bernardino Sun's telephone subscription drive, which has a boiler room full of people calling the house constantly. Both events must stop. Now.

Redlands Does Have Its Faults.

According to the USGS, we've had a total of twenty-one earthquakes here in Redlands in the past couple of days. Most of these are too small to be felt, or are ignored, or taken for trucks hauling more shit to Walmart or the stores in the Doughnut Hole.

This is not good.

That is, the quakes are not good. Our ignorance and the trucks, we brought upon ourselves.

Still, there is one place in California that's surpassing us -- someplace called "The Geysers," which by name alone ought to tell you something about it's geological instability.

Check out our faults by clicking the blog entry headline.

Driving By Wire.

Ah, yes. Technology. Can't live with it; can't live without it.

Poor Toyota. Their decades-old reputation as a maker of safe, durable, unexciting cars hit a speed bump a few months back. Reports started circulating of their vehicles going hell-bent-for-leather despite their owner's protestations. First the floor mats were blamed, now they say it's the gas pedal's fault.

It seems these days a growing number of cars have accelerator pedals that aren't connected to the engine. How can this be, you ask? Well, back in the last century, gas pedals pulled a rod that opened a blade in the carburetor. Then cars got fuel-injection, replacing the carb... so the rod was replaced by a cable to open the throttle body. Add computers to the fuel injection system, so that the system knows the throttle body position, and... to hell with it, the engineers said, we'll just make a pedal that talks to the computer, and the computer can tell the engine what to do.

If I recall correctly, the first car to have this system was the V-12 BMW, back around 1990. My 2002 Mini Cooper had it, and I wasn't thrilled when I found out, because I remembered this. (Paste into your web browser, or search You Tube for "Airbus Airshow Crash")

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EM0hDchVlY

The aircraft shown was one of the first to use "fly-by-wire" technology; in other words, the pilot had to go through a computer to maneuver the plane. The factory wrote the aircraft's software so that if the computer saw that the gear was down, it was xxx feet off the ground, etc. the computer was to go ahead and land the plane.

One small problem: this Airbus was at an airshow, an event the software geeks had never anticipated. The pilot wanted to just fly past the runway at low speed, and then climb out. The computer wouldn't let him do it. The flight data recorder from the wreckage told the ugly truth: Try as he might, the plane wouldn't respond to the pilot's commands. The pilot would pull up on the yolk; the computer would push it right back! The pilot firewalled the throttles. The computer said, "No way." and refused to cooperate.

To borrow a line from HAL the computer in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't let you do that."

Oops.

Back to Toyota: I'm sure their cars worked just fine in testing, too. Nobody ever thought that owners might track in dirt, rocks, trash, hair, etc. that might foul the pedal mechanism, especially since the problem only occurs on one of two pedals from different suppliers. In their defense, it could/can/will happen to other makes as well; Toyota just happens to be a huge company at the leading edge of technology, just like Airbus was.

Toyota's solution for the future? Starting next year, their cars will go to idle if the throttle and brake are simultaneously applied. That will please parents of American 17-year-old boys who want to attempt "power brake" starts from the stoplight, where Junior revs the engine against the brake of their dad's new Camry automatic. But...

Nobody, at least nobody I've heard from, has talked about the other, more serious consequence of this software fix.

Suppose you own a 2011 Toyota with a manual tranny. Not many are sold here, but lots of them are, in lots of other places. Now, imagine you're on a mountain road. You've crested a hill, and coming up on a sharp downhill right-hander. You need to slow down, and change gears. No problem, you say. Grab the stick, and while tapping the brake with your right heel you attempt to blip the throttle with your toe as you engage the clutch and downshift.

Uh-oh. Rather than a clean, RPM-matched shift, the car bucks and jerks like a drunken sailor, because the computer is saying "I'm sorry, Dave..." Your clutch and transmission have just taken a pounding, and, if, heaven forbid, you're in a wet, icy, or gravel-covered corner while all this crap is happening, you could quite possibly lose traction, and therefore control of the car.

Oh, and, you will be sharing the same "Oh shit" sentiment as that Airbus pilot felt as he flew into the trees.

Ain't technology a peach? As my son would say: Good luck with that.

Anyone for yet another recall?

Passings.

Walter Fredrick Morrison has died. He was 90 years old. If that name doesn't ring a bell, perhaps the toy he invented will. You see, Morrison invented the Frisbee.

Mr. Morrison didn't call it the Frisbee, though. He named it the "Pluto Platter" and dressed up in a home-made space suit to promote his creation. In 1957, he sold the rights to Wham-o, which renamed Morrison's creation the "Frisbee".

Over 200 million Frisbees have been sold. I think that number is low; every kid I've known in the last 50 years has owned one, and they are sold around the world.

Oh, yeah. One more thing. J.D. Salinger died a couple of weeks ago. Catcher In The Rye is one of the most overrated books ever written. If you ask me (and you didn't) I'd say Fred Morrison made a bigger contribution to the American experience than Salinger. So there.

Enterprise RAC Follow-up.

As promised, here's the response to my complaint from Enterprise Rent-A-Car.

Mr. Woods,
I wanted to apologize about the HHR that we put you in when you had a reservation for a Full size car, therefore I am going to refund your credit card $25.00 to compensate you for the difference. I hope this resolves your concern and this is a fair resolution. Thank you for your business.

Thanks, Mr. Larson, whoever you are. I love how they never address the issue that their agent in Asheville flat-out lied by claiming that an HHR was a full-size car. Best, they phrased my complaint as a "concern". Yeah, I'm concerned that thousands of other people may be getting screwed the same way I did. But, nevertheless, thanks for my 25 bucks back. Now, let's discuss compensation for pain and suffering...

12 Banned Super Bowl Ads.

An almost-nude model caresses a pumpkin. Two dudes find love over potato chips. Mickey Rooney does the unthinkable. Watch these and other ads that never made it to game day.

Posted using ShareThis

Secrets of the Rent-A-Car World.

Searching for similar issues I had on my recent dealings with Enterprise Rent-A-Car, I found this:

http://consumerist.com/2007/03/9-confessions-from-a-former-enterprise-rental-salesman.html

..or just click the headline of this blog entry; it should take you right to the site.

It's basically everything you ever needed to know to get a great rate on a rental car. Who knew that the rates for each class of car are meaningless? They can charge anything they want! Do some more searching, and you'll find whole web sites devoted to how messed up Enterprise is. It makes me happy I only got ripped off a little bit. By the way, ERAC now owns National and Alamo, too. Good luck.

CHAIRMAN MAO’S Underground City.

Another great photo series from the folks at Crack Two, whoever they are. Enjoy.

CHAIRMAN MAO’S Underground City | Crack Two

Rare Photos of Famous People.

Now for something completely different:

Rare Photos of Famous People (125 pics) | Crack Two

Goin' South, Part V.

Our little adventure was at it's end. We said goodbye to 19th century luxury and busied ourselves with packing up and returning the HHR. Clearing security and boarding the plane took 15 minutes, tops.

I turned my attention to the Sky Mall magazine and the whine of the jet turbines as our lone flight attendant reviewed the multiple ways to escape death in a doomed airplane, should we find ourselves in such a rare situation.

My fancy new Swatch watch's chronometer recorded a precise, 30 second take-off roll between brake release and rotation, and Asheville fell beneath us. I glimpsed both The Biltmore and the Grove Park Inn from the window in the evening dusk, and wished them both well.

Atlanta's airport is the LAX of the south. It's so big (how big is it?) that subway cars shuttle passengers from one terminal to another, deep beneath the runways.

Maura and I wedged ourselves into seats 38 D and E. Passenger 38F showed up momentarily, a young girl on her way to Pomona to be interviewed for veterinary school. Groans were heard as a woman toting two young children dropped into the seats two rows ahead. Kids + cramped quarters + time + cabin pressurization = crying. Lots of crying.

Then things got really bad. The woman in 37F, right in front of us, hunched over and started to sob. The sobbing grew into crying. The crying grew into a wail. Ping! Ping! PING! Passengers started pushing the flight attendant call buttons. The vet student gave me one of those "Oh great, we're screwed now" looks. I gave her one back.

As we later learned, Miss 37F was on her way to rehab in Palm Springs, but not before she mixed up a stimulant and wine cocktail in the airport bar. Our stewardess took off her "enjoy the flight" face and put on her "So help me God, sit up and maintain control, because I've got three officers on the jetway ready to haul your ass off of this plane" demeanor for the benefit of Miss 37F. Wow, I didn't know that flight attendants that in them, unless Captain Skully says the plane's landing in the Hudson.

Thank God for the nice lady in 37D. I don't know who she was, but she spent the entire four hour flight engaging Miss 37F in conversation and keeping her from doing something stupid, like opening a cabin door at 36,000 feet.

At least it took my mind off the width of the seat.

Goin' South, Part IV.

Having said goodbye to kith and kin in Atlanta (having consumed a great deal of leftovers from the party) we headed north once again to Asheville.  Having never seen the Smokey mountains, we chose a new route back, and I'm glad we did.

Lovely country you have there, mountain folk. I bet come summer time, the road is filled with people coming up out of the heat and humidity of Atlanta to enjoy the cool air.  The road is a Harley Davidson owner's dream, with long, smooth curves that would invigorate the rider.

Still not having overcome my movie-goer's paranoia of southern cops ("I sees ya'll from Califurnia. Ya'll hippies? Step outta dat car, son." I again set the cruise control for "slow" and let the HHR do its own thing, while I admired the scenery.

While we were in Atlanta, we'd missed the snow storm that had blanketed the area with six inches of the white stuff. The roads by this time were clear and dry; the bright sun keeping the temperature warm enough to prevent dreaded ice in the shady corners of the road. It looked like some Christmas of my distant past.

Asheville popped into view more quickly than expected. We returned to the first motel we had stayed at, not wanting to be adventurous with our still suffering backs, feet, knees, etc. and chose to visit the restaurant we'd had such a great meal at the first night in town.  If you read part one of this travelblog, you'll know what happened next. Plastic, anyone?

The next day we visited The Biltmore.  Maura, mind you, has effectively no cartilage on one knee, but she climbed up and down staircase after staircase after staircase in America's largest home. The Vanderbilts must have been in great shape having to cope with those stairs... and pity their servants. Maura was in agony.

The following morning we searched out antique stores and checked out some of Asheville's art galleries.
Nothing I've seen compares with the work on display there.  We both agreed that in just one store we saw more terrific stuff than in all of the art colonies in Santa Fe, New Mexico, or Carmel and Monterey on our own California coast.

We'd saved the best for last on our trip. Our last night was to be spent in the hotel that brought us to the attention of Asheville in the first place -- The Grove Park Inn,

GPI is a Mecca for lovers of the Arts and Crafts Movement, and one of the half-dozen or so great historic resorts in the USA, along side those in Yosemite, Yellowstone, and a few others.  This huge resort, located on a mountainside a few miles from central Asheville, looks out over the valley and the distant Smokeys, and has been a destination for tourists since 1895.  It is a rugged looking building, it's walls a great collection of natural stone, making it appear as though somehow the sands of time had eroded away the earth, revealing the hotel beneath the mountain.

The main entrance opens to a great hall, flanked at each end by massive, and I do mean massive, stone fireplaces that dwarf the guests who stand in awe before them.  A row of rocking chairs face the fire, and guests gaze into the flames for hours on end, silent in thought.

It has been a long time since I looked into the mysterious energy a fire possesses. I was captivated, as thousands have been over the decades. It drained away my aches and put my mind at ease.  Looking into a stack of burning logs calls up emotions that date back to man's earliest existance. A fire meant warmth for the night, then as now; safety from predators; an opportunity to cook a meal; provide time to reflect before sleep closed in.

Today, we travel far and pay large amounts of money to sit before a majestic fire such as this. And it is worth every nickel.

Maura negotiated a great rate on a room that ordinarily would cost me the pay of two days hard work. Some ongoing exterior renovation work obscured the view, so the price was halved.  So, only one day's wages... (cough.)

But what a room!  A corner room, at that, with windows on two walls -- it's twin across the hall was once occupied by President Franklin Roosevelt, back in 1936... and ours had the better view.  (Fear of snipers, perhaps?)

Original Craftsman furniture!  Heavy tongue-and-groove paneled doors; tile work to die for; the deep, deep original bathtub.  I guess you had to be there, but it was very indicative of what wealth would have brought you back in the days when traveling to, and then staying at such a resort, might have encompassed two months, rather than a single night.

We prowled the halls for hours, examining hundred-year-old furniture, listening to the trio playing in the bar, and of course, watching the fire. The hotel was perhaps at best 30 percent occupied, it being the dead of winter.  As lovely and warm a place as it is, the staff as pleasant and cooperative as you could ask for, I still had to crack a joke about The Shining, Steven King's horror story about a great hotel like this in winter.  Maura was not amused. Redrum, redrum...

Next: Back to reality.

Goin' South, Part III.

The city of Atlanta is justifiably proud of having hosted the Olympics 14 years ago.  It has a lot to show for the $1.8 billion it spent, most notably the Centennial Park downtown. It is probably the biggest and best urban park built in the US since Fredrick Law Olmstead's Central Park in New York City.

Centennial Park these days is dominated by what is touted as the nation's largest aquarium, and the Coca-Cola Bottling Company's tribute to itself, the "Coke Experience'.  I'm bigger on history than I am on fish, so I guided Maura towards the Coke building; its glass and steel design reminded me of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, a place Maura and I visited on our first trip together.

It costs a surprisingly lot of money to have Coke tell you its story; $20 a ticket, plus another ten-spot to park.  Remember though, the payoff of the tour is at the end -- the ability to sample Coke products from around the world.  ("64 different flavors!" we were reminded again and again.)

First stop on the tour are display cases and walls of Coke advertising from the past 100-plus years,followed by a small bottle line and then, their piece de' resistance, a "4-D" movie complete with shaking chairs and spitting seat backs.  It's all very, very Disneyland -- so much so I'd bet money they farmed out the work to Disney's "Imagineers". Nice, but unnecessary. We chose the non-shaking row, our backs still tender from the Delta flight.

Finally, you get to the fabled 64 flavors from around the world.  Having tasted a bunch of them, it's a good thing they thought up Coca-Cola first.  Here's a dirty little secret:  only standard American (read high fructose corn syrup) Coke is available.  If you come looking for the genuine original -- Coke made with (yum!) sugar -- you won't find it here.  I suppose if they did, nobody would want to buy the stuff we get now.  Visit your local specialty store and look for the good stuff from the independent Coke bottler in Dublin, Texas, or, even easier and cheaper to find, Coke from Mexico.  Now that's "the real thing"...

Atlanta is as beautiful as any American city can be.  Striking new buildings jut up to the sky; the highways make a Californian envious of their silky pavement, and the city fathers have done a good job of preserving the best of the past, too, both big (the historic Fox Theater) and the small (Gone With The Wind author Margaret Mitchell's house).

North of the city center, there are beautiful apartments and condos that, still farther out, give way to private homes that would be a joy to own anywhere in the country.  Atlanta is a city that's done good by itself.

Goin' South, Part II.

So, south to Atlanta in our gay little Chevy HHR... Having seen one or two or five too many movies featuring retarded southern sheriffs terrorizing tourists with speed traps and radar guns, I pegged the cruise control at exactly the speed limit and watched the miles and miles of those ram-rod straight trees roll past my windshield.

North Carolina gave way to South Carolina, and then Georgia.  I suppose I was mesmerized by the trees, as they are so few and far between here in California, a place where even the few we have are hunted down and lobotomized by the electric company if they come within ten feet of their power poles.

Growing near the Atlanta suburbs, the highway widened and things began looking more familiar to a Californian as national chain big box stores and fast food joints grew numerous at every exit.  Our destination found, we popped in to visit Maura's brother, a high-powered attorney of national note, and two of her sisters, Ruthie and Lizzie (the expectant one) who work with him.

Brother Johnny's office, with it's neo-Federal design and halls lined with Presidential portraits, suggested that he'd picked up part of the set from TV's West Wing at some Hollywood yard sale, or at least hired their designer.  Very impressive.

Tired from the drive and the remnants of jet lag (how can it be three hours earlier, yet feel it's three hours later?) we made it to our nice, warm, generic hotel and crashed for the night.

The baby shower/family reunion/meet the latest set of spouses/boyfriends/girlfriends party took the better part of the next day.  Ruthie held the bash at her beautiful house, which she shares with her boyfriend Keith, a stocky gent with a big passion for anything having to do with Michigan football.

Now, my timidity when faced with interacting with huge crowds of enthusiastic, if not slightly inebriated in-laws is well known, so Ruthie made it clear there were many places to "hide" in the massive Ruthie/Keith mansion.  No fear; I primed myself with several bottles of Corona and dealt with my social inadequacies head on. Or, at least, in the 'head'.  (Keith, bless 'em, has an amazing variety of reading material in the bathroom. I now know a great deal about high-dollar power boats. Thanks, Keith.)

Lizzie looks radiant in her final weeks of pregnancy, and her husband Bill prepared enough food to feed Delta's entire staff of starving Riwandans, plus several Haitian counties thrown in for good measure. It was (burp) very good.

Bill's parents were up from their home in Florida.  They look like they'd been sent over from Central Casting to play the perfect senior couple, which they are.  Bill's mom could easily get work in Hollywood  in one of those "I may be over 60, but I can look and act 45" commercials that pay Sally Field so much money.

Speaking of Hollywood, I feel sorry for dear Ruth, wasting all that time and money in law school when she should have been perfecting her stand-up comedy work.  She is devastatingly funny. Seriously,  this is a woman who could have  stolen roles from Lauren Graham, Jenna Elfman, Tina Fey, and half a dozen other big time comics. Oh well. Saturday Night Live's loss is disability law's gain.

I'd regale you with further observations of the event, but, well, you just had to be there.  And a word to Keith... let me know if you find a Grand Banks 42' in bristol condition with low hours on the Cats.  I'm a player.

Next: Heading downtown for a Coke.

Goin' South.

My wife's youngest sister's baby being due shortly, we hustled down Atlanta way for a family get together and short vacation. What I found shook my preconceived notions of The South, as well as creating a great deal of fodder for Another Day.

Item 1:  Delta Airlines has lost its grip on reality.  A plane flight to Atlanta is roughly $545, but going to Asheville NC via Atlanta is only $278. Asheville is a place we've always wanted to visit. We chose Asheville as our arrival and departure destination.  Delta's pricing schedule isn't their only problem, however.  While all the airlines try to cram as many discount fare passengers into the rear of their planes (also known as "steerage" in the old days of, say, the Titanic) our Boeing 757 had seats that no adult, short of a starving Riwandan refugee, could find comfortable.

 Lacking a tape measure (not that the TSA would have let bring one onboard) I estimate the width of the so-called seats at a meager twelve inches wide, thirteen tops.  I'd like to cram a few Delta execs into those seats for four hours and get their opinion. Then again, perhaps Delta is being run these days by Riwandan refugees, which would explain a number of things.

Item 2: Flying to Asheville, rather than Atlanta required us to rent a car, which we would have had to do anyway. Here's a laugh. Enterprise Rent-A-Car describes their full-size cars on their website as "Chevrolet Impalas or similar".  Note the italics, folks. Our "similar" car, there being not an Impala to be found, was a Chevy HHR, one of those retro-styled wagons that GM introduced to steal sales away from Chrysler's popular PT Cruiser.  The HHR is based on the Cobalt, a compact by anyone's standard.  Well, bullshit, I say; a tricked-out Cobalt is still a Cobalt, not an Impala.  I fired off a Nastygram to Enterprise on my arrival home. I'll let you know the outcome.

Item 3: Forget any preconceived notion that North Carolina in general, and Asheville in particular is some backwater film set for Deliverance or Smokey and the Bandit.  I learned this the minute I pulled out of the parking lot and got passed by a Lotus Elise (!), as I, in turn passed by a sizable and well-stocked BMW dealership.

As it turns out, Asheville is one very hip place to be, with art galleries in abundance, a cranking music scene, and money being made and spent quite well, thank you.  If there's a backwater, perhaps it's here in SoCal's Inland Empire, though a Fontucky/San Bernarghetto rap-and-ranchera version of Dueling Banjos is beyond even my imagination.

In short, the Smokey Mountains are, well, smokin'.  Beautiful houses of all vintages abound, all set on generously sized lots, surrounded by thick groves of soldier-straight trees that seem to be uniformly set four feet apart and sixty feet tall.  House prices seem cheap; perhaps it's the abundance of lumber, I don't know.

Item 4:  There's a chain of restaurants out there that serves delicious, gut-busting barbecue.  I won't mention the name, however, because they tried to kill my wife. Just be warned of this if you ever encounter a roadhouse with the Lone Star state in its name.  In due fairness, the Asheville outlet is supposedly their training center, so, as the old commercials say, your mileage my vary.  In any event, it's a great tasting way to die. And, they will comp your meal if you complain. Note to the trainees: do not, repeat, do not melt plastic bags into the pulled pork. Bad idea. Very bad idea....

Item 5:  If you have the slightest interest in architecture, or what it was like to be a railroad baron back in the 19th century, you owe yourself a visit to Asheville's own Biltmore mansion, home of the Vanderbilts.  This was, and still is, the largest private home in America. You could, I suppose, try to wrap your head around the square footage (125,000), but try this: there's four and a half ACRES under one roof.

Guess what? It works. It's a beautifully designed home in the French chateau style; opulent, yes, but not garish in the way you might envision how some modern, super-rich guy might blow hundreds of millions on his crib.  Vanderbilt wanted the best, so he bought the best, starting with his architect and landscaper.  The architect? The guy who designed the base for the Statue of Liberty.  The landscape designer? The guy who created New York's Central Park.  Can you say "heavy hitters"?

Vanderbilt pumped so much money into his project that roughly one out of nine people in Asheville were employed at one time in creating Biltmore.  Vanderbilt paid well, too.  He attracted artisans to the area, and that reverberates on in the Asheville art scene to this day.  It was such a huge undertaking to build, and now operate and maintain the house (still owned by Vanderbilt's descendants) that, even now, 1,800 people work at the Biltmore during peak tourist season.

It's almost (but not quite) a pity to know that Bill Gates prefers curing disease and poverty with his billions, rather than build a 21st century competitor to the Biltmore. Gate's pad would probably look like the Biltmore, too... except it would be a) reinterpreted by I.M. Pei or Frank Gehry, and b) located in a geosyncronous orbit 22,000 miles over Redmond, Washington.  I'm not sure who he'd get for the landscaping; James Cameron, perhaps.

Coming next: Dave's march on Atlanta...