Typical Dodger Fans

Posted on | March 26, 2010 | No Comments

Marin Headlands: Golden Gate

Posted on | March 24, 2010 | No Comments

On our last day in San Francisco, broke as a joke, but still wanting to take in more of the sites of San Francisco we decided to take a walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. the Parc 55 Concierge suggested to us to take the San Francisco MTA #76 bus which only runs every hour on Sunday and Holidays. This would take us right to the Golden Gate Bridge Toll Plaza for $2.

Catching the bus at Sutter & Powell the MTA driver asked us where we were going. After hearing we were going to the Golden Gate he suggested we stay on at the toll plaza, cross the bridge with him and he’d show us something beautiful on the other side. A little creaped out and confused at first we saw him tell passenger after passenger the same thing. So we went with it. The Golden Gate Toll Plaza came and went.

After crossing the bridge we tool a left up a steep hill into the Marin Headlands, a part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. We immediately recognized the view point where most tourists captured views of the Golden Gate Bridge. Still climbing up we entered a passs and were exposed to some of the greenest hills I’ve encountered in California. With some random stops, that I don’t believe were bus stops along the way we then passed a Nike Missile Site at Fort Barry. Now decommissioned the Nike Missile sites across the country were antiaircraft sites built in the 50′s for the cold war. We eventually caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a hidden beach and lagoon. The bus worked its way down the mountain sides to Rodeo Beach, where about a hundred surfers and dog owner took advantage of the beach and the water. To the south there was a rock formation that looked a lot like the closing scene from Goonies. There appeared to be countless hiking trails branching off from this stop to take advantage of

The Marin Headlands were definitely a treat. The next time we are in the bay area, we plan on taking advantage of this park, the trails and the beach front. We’re hoping we can take Cooper next time.

Planning a San Francisco Weekend Trip…

Posted on | March 15, 2010 | No Comments

Brandie is turning the ‘dirty thirty’ this Friday, and to celebrate (besides going out last weekend) I’m taking her up to San Francisco for the weekend. I’ve been a few times to the city for a couple of different reasons. My favorite still has to be the first trip I took with my family. I think that the first time really experiencing a new city.

So I’d love to give Brandie a similar experience for her first trip to the Bay Area. We’ve pulled together a list of the attractions that we’d like to take in on the 3 day weekend trip. I’m not renting a car and we’ll probably take BART into the city. Doing a little searching I found an awesome Google City Tour for Union Square. Only in Google Labs they allow you to create and save walking tours of several cities. Thus far here’s our check list of places to see and things to do:

• Golden Gate Bridge
• Fisherman’s Warf
• Pier 39
• Ghirardelli Square
• Cable Car Ride
• Alcatraz
• Union Square
• Chinatown
• Golden Gate Park

Conclusion of the Four Square Experiment

Posted on | March 7, 2010 | No Comments

So after just over a month of checking in, adding tips, and completing to do’s on Four Square, I’m not sure if I have a definitive answer whether its a valuable social network for me. Four Square definitely comes off more as a game then a social network. The competition of declaring mayorships and collecting badges are enticing enough to strike that competitive streak in everyone. During the course of the month I was dismayed when I lost a mayorship, and found myself visiting that location more frequently, just to get it back.

During the course of the month, my Four Square profile has seen four new badges. The Super User badge, for 30 check ins in a month, the Local Badge for checking in to Online Guru 3x in the week, the Bender Badge for checking in 4+ Nights in a row, and the Explorer Badge for checking into 25 Venues.

I also established a few new majorships, which I guess shows my dedication to these businesses or perhaps how routine my life may be. So not a big surprise I’m the major of Oggi’s Pizza, Pure Salon & Spa, Chipotle, Taco Bell, and Luna Grill all withing 5-10 minutes from home, and several right across the street.

A buddy of mine also pointed out the dangers for location based social networking. Spreading your Four Square updates through Twitter can give any potential robber the knowledge that your not home. Please Rob Me takes results from the Twitter feed looking for Four Square’s tags. The website was designed to enlighten Four Square users to what they are sending out on the web. Over the course of a minute over 100 Four Square updates were sent out.

I guess the next valuable question is, where is the value in all of this Four Square madness. For me, there wasn’t much except for the tips I found based on your location. In-N-Out and Chipotle list secret menu items, while others offer parking advice. Once again, perhaps if more friends were on Four Square I might opt to use it more frequently.

That being said I’m going to pick Four Square as the current front runner for location based social networking. They are doing a better job then BrightKite, Loopt, Yelp, or Gowalla. With the rumor Facebook is going to join the club, this might be the catalyst that gets local social networking to the masses.

Did Yelp Change their Review Filter?

Posted on | March 5, 2010 | No Comments

Yelp, the local review website, may have recently changed their algorithm that blocks some reviews from being displayed publicly. This algorithm looks for fraudulent Yelp accounts and fraudulent Yelp reviews. I assume this has been very effective for them, keeping the local business reviews pure and uninfluenced. They protect their system from being gamed by business owners looking to improve their Yelp rankings, by posting positive reviews. The algorithm would look at several factors including a valid email account and overly positive review.

But recently I’ve been noticing a lot of positive and negative reviews appearing on businesses from brand new Yelpers. These visitors appear to have signed up, just to leave a review and thats it. Normally single reviews or first time reviews are red flagged by Yelp, or seemed to have been flagged before in the past. Yelp algorithm was strong, but effective in detecting these types of reviews.

But perhaps the algorithm was too strong prompting a change. I’ve know legitimate reviews would get caught in Yelp’s algorithm. I know this because when I tried sending a friend what I found to be a humorous review for a business we went. My friend could not find my review in the few reviews the business had. But when I looked at the business page, I clearly saw it as the top review. I discovered this was because I was logged in. For that business, the review count and the overall review rating would change.

I would hope Yelp will perfect their review algorithm so that legitimate reviews are counted, and bogus reviews are discarded. Yelp has been in trouble with their review system before, and in one case offering to remove negative reviews if the business advertised with Yelp. This of course brings up the legitimacy of the quality score that Yelp assigns to businesses. Are they hiding negative reviews cause businesses advertise with Yelp, or are they hiding positive reviews because a business doesn’t advertise with Yelp. I think only Yelp employees know that one.

Padres Spring Training Opens Tomorrow

Posted on | March 3, 2010 | No Comments

Padres Spring Training Opens tomorrow and another batch of walk on’s, AAA, AA, and past professionals attempt to make the Opening Day roster. Like the NFL’s Preseason Spring Training really doesn’t have much draw for me. I like the intimate venues the National vs. American league match ups and even the tease of MLB around the corner. I would even go out for the weekend to check out the venue and some of the match ups, but I’m not going to be glued to the internet, scrutinizing an individual players fielding percentage, because really it doesn’t matter. It’s Spring Training. I’m not going to be using this data to pick up a sleeper in my fantasy baseball league. Like the NFL Spring Training / Preseason is too long, and I don’t see any way to spice it up.

Before the first pitch is thrown or ball is hit… I can tell you with 90% certainty which players will make the team. So… here’s my prediction for the Padres 25-man Opening Day Roster.

There you go… I hope Adrian gets a huge contract, and stays in San Diego… but knowing the Padres past contracts it probably won’t happen. (See: Jake Peavy)

TED Talks: Jamie Oliver

Posted on | March 2, 2010 | No Comments

When I get the chance I love watching TED Talks. They truly ideas worth spreading. Jamie Oliver, more commonly known as the Naked Chef won the 2010 TED Award for his stance on obesity.

At the heart of Oliver’s work is an assault on the obesity epidemic: The CDC states that one in four Americans are considered obese. It is estimated that 43 percent of Americans, or 103 million people, will be obese by 2018. The cost of this epidemic is anticipated to reach $344 billion per year. It currently accounts for almost 10 percent of the yearly US health care costs, and that rate will rise to 21 percent by 2018. WHO’s latest projections indicate that, globally in 2005, approximately 1.6 billion adults were overweight and projects that by 2015, that figure will rise to 2.3 billion.

TED Prize winner announced!

This is one of the best TED talks I’ve seen to date. I recommend you watch it, preach it and spread it through all the social media networks you can. The TV show, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, will debut March 26th.

and on that note…. time for a diet.

Lost Prediction

Posted on | March 1, 2010 | No Comments

After watching the 4th episode of the final Season of Lost, my theory of what is really going on its taking shape on this crazy TV shows. I don’t subscribe to all the Lost Fan sites out there so there’s no outside influence here. I explained this to Brandie the other night, and her only response was… thats f’d up. So here’s the theory for what its worth:

The Players

So the entire show revolves around Good vs. Evil, the balance of nature. Jacob and this other dude, I’m going to call the Smoke Monster for lack of another name. These two remind me of Greek gods, messing with the human race, just to see how human react to situations. Jacob is the good guy, represented in white attire. Seth is the bad guy, represented in black attire.

In LOST, Jacob and the Smoke Monster are playing a game, where many of characters on the island are the game pieces. This game has happened over and over again, but the end result is always the same. The balance of good vs evil is maintained. Jacob is good with this however the Smoke Monster is not and manipulates the game, finding a way around the rules to have Ben kill Jacob (End of Season 5)

The Rules

So like any game of chess there are rules that can’t be violated. The game must be played out and they can not interfere with the game. Jacob has selected his players and Seth has selected his own. Within the seaside cave, several of the main characters had their names written on the cave ceiling, by Jacob. Those players that have died have been crossed out. As the individuals go through their lives they have been met with challenges, where they must choose good or evil, right or wrong. If one of Jacobs characters go evil, they are ‘claimed’. If one of Seth’s players goes good, it tips it the other way. Currently Claire, Sawyer and apparently Sayid have been claimed, by the Smoke Monster.

This brings into question whether Jacob and the Smoke Monster actually manipulate the lives of the characters of if they have free will to make their own decisions. It is pretty safe to say some manipulation has occurred with Jacob visiting most of the main characters, but when it comes to make choices, a common message throughout Lost, are the characters acting on their own? My theory is that they have been manipulated to getting to the island, after all the other candidates have been eliminated, but the decisions made on the island are 100% theirs to own.

Jacob and the Smoke Monster are tired of playing the game, and they are looking for replacements. My theory is it’ll end up being Jack and Sawyer, that replace the two and continue to play their game of good vs evil and life.

Past Games

There have been many instances, of black and white good vs. evil. One of the first episodes Locke and Walt have a discussion about backgammon and checkers. The spoke about how backgammon was the oldest game known. “Two Players, Two Sides, One is light, One is dark.” Chess and Checkers have also been mentioned numerous times throughout the seasons. Lost is a game, just on a larger scale then a 1ft x 1ft board. More like the size of an island.

Web 1.0 Web Design Lives on

Posted on | February 26, 2010 | No Comments

Since creating my first website in 1996 on AOL and Geocities, website technology has evolved, bringing about new web design styles, techniques, and limitations have been resolved away. 14 years later what was once impossible is easily accomplished with CSS, JavaScript, JQuery, AJAX, Flash and of course CSS. It has made the web a better and more aesthetically pleasing place. The old school Web 1.0 have been mostly weeded out. Yahoo killed Geocities a few months back, killing 80% of the bad Web 1.0 design left on the web.

But every once in a while… you come across a relic from the 90′s era of web design. Heading out to one of my favorite San Diego Restaurants, I encountered another. Pomegranate Russian-Georgian Restaurant‘s website is just horrible! First of all its a HomeStead page, which means someone’s continuing to pay for this thing. You would home the owner would of purchased the domain name by now. But back to the design. This site uses all the old school techniques, including an animated gif and visitor counter. Having dined at Pomegranate before I knew the food was quality and headed out for dinner a few moments later. However I feel bad for all the people that discover this website and don’t make a reservation and go somewhere else.

If you are the owner of Pomegranate Russian-Georgian Restaurant let work out a trade. I will redo this site for you and bring it up to date for a couple of dinners at your restaurant. Please email me and we can work something out.

Chargers & Tomlinson Part Ways

Posted on | February 24, 2010 | No Comments

The news of the Chargers and LaDainian Tomlinson parting was was not unexpected, it just really sucks hearing the official word. LT’s time in San Diego was historic, breaking team and NFL records along the way

LT Joined the Chargers back in 2001, when San Diego traded their #1 pick to the Falcons and used their 5th pick to draft the future league MVP. Looking back now, aren’t you glad we didn’t grab Vick! Three years later LT passed Paul Lowe to become the Chargers all-time leading rusher. In 2006 against the Broncos, LT broke the touchdown in a season record. He finished with 31 touchdowns.

LT is a class act. Always the professional. He brings good values and team leadership to a league where most players are finding their way into trouble. He was awarded the Walter Payton award for his “Touching Lives Foundation” off-field contributions.

LaDainian’s Future
LT has 2-3 good years still under his belt. Like San Diego favorites in the past, LT will seek out a contender team, in hopes to add value to their line up and grab a super bowl ring. The big team rumor out there is the New England Patriots where former Chargers Junior Seau, Wes Welker and Rodney Harrison found their Super Bowls. If he becomes another member of the San Diego Sports Curse, I’ll be pissed but I hope LT finds his way to a good team, with quality team mates. The Spano’s have already acknowledged they will retire his number, and they should offer him the 1 day contract where he can retire as a Charger.

Chargers Future
With LT’s departure, the Chargers now have a HUGE hole in their line up. Daren Sproles is not your every down running back. We will have to look toward free agency and the draft to find a replacement for LT. Luckily for us this draft looks to be rich with running backs.