Today, Barack Obama was voted to be become the next American President and I watched it live on CNN.
Just some side notes:
CNN.com web development team is freakin’ awesome as well as their whole IT department for pulling it all together. I was especially surprised to see holographic technology used to ‘beam’ people into the studio from remote locations. Never thought I’d see that in my lifetime!
Today… I lost my beloved Wilson. No, not Tom Hanks’ Wilson. My Wilson was much more special. About 3 years ago, I found him all alone at a playground after the lights went out. Worn and used but still as good as any other ball you’d see on the courts, he’s been able to hold his own all these years. Never lost his grip nor nor his grooves nor his air pressure… he was a good ball.
I would leave work everyday, looking forward to seeing him there in the backseat of my car. Much like you would expect to come home to see your dog happily waiting for you at the front porch when you got home. Wilson kept me occupied and was always ready at a moments notice to reciprocate my hoop dreams. He helped me exercise, kept me in shape and meet new people. He was conversation material when I had guests in my car. He was always there for me. He was even able to raise my spirits in my darkest days. How could you get mad at anyone named Wilson? He was a good ball…
Today, I lost my Wilson @ Woodbridge Community Park after the lights went out. I walked all around and asked everyone there if they had seen him. They had not… Today was a sad day. Wilson, you will be missed.
Local cable company to Vista Media Center
Live streaming Silverlight footage from NBCOlympics.com
I was checking out what events were on right after the opening ceremonies and couldn’t help but notice the difference in quality between the live Silverlight feeds vs my local cable to TV tuner/Vista Media Center combo. As you can see above, even though the sizes aren’t exactly the same, the Silverlight stream was definately way more sharp and vibrant compared to the Media Center’s.
To me that’s just amazing that we can have live streaming footage from China on my 200KB/s downstream that’s of higher quality than a local cable connection.
Ever since I was a kid I have always been interested in building stuff with whether it be with Legos, wooden blocks, bikes, or whatever else I could afford at the time. Going through high school I turned to building websites and learning how to program. In college I started out as a comp sci major but even though I ended up switching my major to an International Studies degree my passions for technology has never been greater.
I’ll admit it. I’m a closet geek and a serial hobbyist. My latest ventures have lead me to the Boe-Bot from Parallax. Since I work primarily with Microsoft technologies I thought it was awesome that they have a development framework called the Microsoft Robotics Studio. So last week I ordered the Boe-Bot kit after debating between this and the Lego Mindstorm NXT kit. The reasoning behind this? I thought I could learn more about how these things work since the Boe-Bot looks like it has more of its guts exposed and I’ve never worked with anything like this before.
So I got the package 2 days ago and joyfully sliced the package open like a kid at Christmas time. Looked at the manual’s cover and sighed…
Approximately 2 hours to assemble…
Introductory project hours to completion: 40 hours….
Difficulty level: 5 out of 10….
Looks like this might be another project that I may never get to finish. Damn you needs for instant gratification!!! =\
Just spotted the HP 22″ Touchsmart @ a local Costco for $1449.99. Looks pretty sweet with an Intel Core2duo T5850, 64-bit Vista Home Premium, 4GB RAM, 500GB, dvdrw, tv tuner and nvidia gforce 9300.
Could this be the beginning of Microsoft’s vision of a Microsoft Surface in every home?
On my 13th day in South Korea, we drove a couple of hours south to Anmyundo Beach on the western coast and was hooked up with 1 night @ a condo resort. It was called the Lotte Ocean Castle. Not much news to report here as we spent my last couple of days in South Korea just relaxing. Oh actually, I did notice that middle aged Korean men like to dance together at an evening outdoor live music lounge. Apparently it’s a cultural thing where it’s customary for men and women to dance amongst themselves as in guys gyrating hips towards other guys. It was quite a sight to see them grabbing eachother by the hands to go dancing! :p
Other notable things:
Anybody know what these things are called?
$40 for 7 minutes into the sunset and back.
Day 14
There was also a pretty cool ATV ride tour for $25 that took me through the forests and sandy beaches for ~40 minutes. Unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera along with me on the ride.
That pretty much concludes my 2 weeks in South Korea. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep this blog up to date with more posts and pictures!
Day 11
The morning after casino day, we drove about an hour or two to the eastern seaboard of South Korea to some beaches near Gangneung. There were a lot of military posts from back in the day where I guess they were watching for Japanese invasions by sea. There lots of cool jagged rocks and cliffs to look at, but most of the visitors were divers and fishermen looking for shellfish.
Snorkel divers looking for shellfish.
2 fishermen taking a break on the rocks.
Day 12
This day was DMZ Tour day. We took a subway during morning rush hour which was crazy crowded… almost suffocating crowded as we had to stand for nearly 2 hours to get to Seoul where the tour bus was to pick us up. We had a very pleasant old lady as our tour guide who spoke remarkable English. She was still fobby but was very easy to understand and even knew when to throw in jokes and stuff.
If you’re looking for a tour, there’s only a few companies that do them and I think they’re all pretty similar. I forgot the name of the tour group I went with but it was based out of the Lotte Hotel in Seoul. We left the hotel at about 10am and was back by about 5pm. That was the shorter tour, there’s an even longer one that starts at 8am for those of you that are interested in visiting one of the previously secret infiltration tunnels built by the North Koreans.
Me standing under a monument @ one of the stops. I'm not Korean by the way.
Another monument @ another stop. It was at the last South Korean park before going to the DMZ.
This is Freedom Bridge where POWs were traded.
Steps leading up to an observation deck where we could see some North Korean villages.
South Korean soldier standing guard at the UN sanctioned meeting room between North and South Korea.
At the DMZ. Gray buildings belong to North Korea, blue buildings belong to South Korea.
North Korean faux village. Apparently, this village is for show only as they want to make visible that they are thriving. We were told that if we used binoculars, we could see that nobody actually lives there and that many of the buildings don't have any windows.
My 10th day in South Korea was spent at Kangwon Land which is a casino hotel resort type of place way out in the boonies of I don’t even know what province. It was near the east coast of the South Korean peninsula and was about a 5-6 hour drive from Seoul.
The Pros
We got to the hotel around 5 or 6 in the evening and it was pretty nice. The parking lot was quite full and parking was kind of hard to find. We walked up the the main entrance where they have some peculiar architectural displays?
The hotel lobbies and floors were very spacious and it didn’t wreak of that cigarette smell that permeates all the Las Vegas hotels. To enter the main casino, foreigners have to submit their passports for screening and free admission while South Koreans have to present identification and pay, I believe, 10,000won to enter. What a ripoff eh?
Upon entering there are 2 beverage stations that were pretty cool with about 10 different varieties of teas, juices, coffees, and sodas.
The Cons
There is airport style security to enter the main casino floor, except I have no idea what the metal detector was for. I saw countless heads walking through it with plenty of alerts which the staff paid no attention to. They did, however, prevented anyone from bringing in any liquids presumably to make sure nobody brings in any alcohol.
Korean gambling habits are nuts! It seemed like the game of choice amongst the natives were variations of baccarat, blackjack, roulette, slot machines to the max. Shoot, I don’t even think I saw many other types of games. All the card tables (I’d estimate ~250 tables) had people on them at least 3-4 layers deep and I’m not exaggerating. The first layer consisted of the players sitting at the table. The second layer consisted of either the players’ significant others, or people trying to get a seat. The third and fourth layers were all people trying to get into the action or just watching. So at any given table, there would be a at least 20 people crowded around. Needless to say, I didn’t even get to touch the felt on any of the card tables.
The slot machines were a whole different beast. People didn’t gather around any of the machines but they were practically all taken up. I’d estimate about ~1000 slot machines of various game styles and the majority of them were all accounted for! And now here’s the crazy part. I’d say over half of the slot machines had players which I’d like to call ghost and ninja ATM machines.
The ninja players were the cash cows. They would either scope out an empty row of slots or start with a machine in a row and wait for neighboring machines to open up. Then they would insert ungodly amounts of money into entire rows of slot machines and put them on auto-pilot. This auto-pilot scheme worked by the player stuffing a piece of paper or dollar bill into the crevice of the maximum bid button. Then they would run back to the ATM’s for more funds or stand watch nearby. So it was totally not uncommon to see entire rows of slot machines spinning all by themselves without anyone even sitting at them.
The ghost players would insert money into one or more slot machines, leave either a 1000won bill or napkin over the credits and just disappear for unknown amounts of time. Unlike the ninja players, the ghost players do not prefer to put their slot machines on autopilot. These were the most annoying players and made it hella hard to find a cheap open machine to play. The biggest bitch I saw was one that was ghosting a 10cent machine. I was playing on a machine next to hers and every 20-30 minutes she would come grumbling over to pound on the poor slot machine buttons for about 2 minutes and then leave to lose more money elsewhere. This went on for about 2 hours before I left.
About the hotel… The amenities outside of the casino floor were lame! There was an “Adventure Palace”/ arcade/movie theater that we looked forward to instead of gambling all our money away but it freakin’ closed @ 8pm! Furthermore, all the shops and bars were closed by 10pm! So after 10pm there was nothing to do except roam the casino floors and drink from the free beverage (juice/tea/soda) bars.
After my first taste of bungee jumping on day 3 I went searching for something even higher! We found a place in Jecheon called Cheongpung Land and decided to make the 2 hour drive out there. Surrounding Cheongpung Land is a humongous lake surrounded by some of the most beautiful and green mountains/hills I’ve ever seen.
The cost was $40 for a single jump and was well worth it as it was the tallest bungee tower in all of South Korea @ 62m (203 feet) high! Man, I gotta tell you, the hardest part was after they clipped you in and then it was time to hobble to the edge of the platform. It was crazy scary looking down and having half my feet dangling off the edge. Then I had to raise my arms and stand straight up closing my fists…
5…
4…
3…
2…
1…
whoooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!
The fall was intense as I had never fallen and hung upside down for that long before. I felt my head pulsating with rushes of blood for a good 10 minutes afterwards.
The Super Burger
On the way home we stopped by a Shinsegae for dinner where I had the best burger I’ve ever had. Well, the meat was a little bit too well done but damn, I don’t think I’ve ever had a better basic burger in the states. The bun was super fluffy soft and had almost everything you could want in a burger. Lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, onions, egg, bacon, mayo, ketchup, and I’m probably missing something else, all stacked super tall. They called it the ‘Super Burger.’
It’s about 6 inches tall.
The meat’s in there somewhere.
Day 8 was a rest day. Stayed in to watch some ridiculous yet entertaining Korean TV and went out for some basketball in the evening.
Sometimes I wish America had some funny wholesome shows like they have here instead of all that reality TV crap.
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