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ImageMagick book
MythTV book
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Tue, 30 Jun 2009
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When leaving the US, I stayed in the Wild Palms Hotel. I selected it for three reasons: I'd stayed there before; it is part of the Joie De Vivre chain which I have had good experiences with before; and it was very cheap on Expedia ($77 compared to an average rate in the area of about $150). I learnt some interesting things I thought I'd share:
- The hotel is ok, just make sure you get an upstairs room. I was woken by mating elephants at 5am two days running because the floors are so thin. Be the mating elephant, not the victim of it! Once I moved to an upstairs room this probably went away.
- The executive rooms aren't worth it. I got moved into one of these because of the noise problems. Its advantages was it was away form the road, had a bathrobe (really), and a LCD TV. I don't watch TV much, so the extra cost if I was paying isn't worth it.
- The cleaning service kept "short sheeting" the bed. By short sheeting I mean pulled the sheets up to make the top of the bed look impressive, but leaving the bottom couple of inches of the mattress uncovered. Lots of hotels do this, and I find it crazily annoying.
- The air conditioner was insanely loud. It was 38 when I was staying there, and every time the air conditioner kicked in I would be woken up by it.
- Its a lot further south than I realized. It took about 20 minutes to get to work if you took El Camino. Depending on traffic its probably much faster to go all the way to the 101 and then take that. The Lawrence Expressway looks like the best way to get to the 101 from the hotel.
So, overall this hotel was "ok", apart from some minor annoyances. I'll keep staying there so long as they're cheap. If they're not running a special, then you're much better off staying further north.
Tags for this post: travel( ) usa( ) california( ) sunnyvale( )
posted at: 14:25 | path: /travel/usa/california/sunnyvale | permanent link to this entry
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Tue, 19 Aug 2008
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Thu, 03 Jan 2008
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Its clear from my past posts that I am interested in cold war bunkers.
I just watched "Lost Worlds: US Nuclear Bunkers". That's re-ignited my interest in US nuclear bunkers (as well as cold war history in general). I like the idea of the Lorton Bunker (under a correctional facility 20 miles form Washington DC, and abandoned in only 2001), and I've talked about the Greenbrier bunker before.
It's a pity its four hours drive from Arlington, VA:
View Larger Map
The Greenbrier was secret for 30 years, and kept constantly stocked will all the supplies needed for three weeks of sealed living for 1,100 people. Finally it was leaked by one article in the Washington Post. After the article, the site had to be decommissioned.
Next, they talked about the Palm Beach Florida bunker built for JFK. Tours of that bunker are cheap too -- only $10 each. This bunker is only a decontamination shower, and a single room, but I guess you wouldn't complain if you'd just been nuked.
Finally, there is Cheyenne Mountainwhich used to offer tours, but apparently doesn't any more.
Tags for this post: travel( ) usa( ) virginia( )
posted at: 20:29 | path: /travel/usa/virginia | permanent link to this entry
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Thu, 27 Dec 2007
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To quote from this blog post (its a bit odd that its a PDF, but whatever):
... the new expatriate regime (Exit Tax
Provision) requires expatriates to recognise gain on their assets, and imposes a
new tax on gifts and bequests by expatriates to Americans, This new provision
(styled Section 877A) is an addition to (and not a replacement of) the current
expatriation tax rules of Section 877. Under the Exit Tax Provision, certain
individuals who renounce their U.S. citizenship or U.S. long-term residents
who relinquish their U.S. residence status (collectively covered expatriates)
must recognise gain, or otherwise be taxed, on all their assets on the date they
expatriate. In addition, gifts or bequests they make to U.S. citizens or residents
after expatriation will be subject to tax at onerous estate/gift tax rates.
In other words, if you're a US resident and you leave the US permanently, then they deem all of your world wide assets sold, and then tax you on the gain. This includes retirement funds, as well as savings. Congress is proposing this as a way of funding tax relief for serving members of the US military.
Its not law yet, but still something I should pay attention to.
Tags for this post: travel( ) usa( )
posted at: 10:20 | path: /travel/usa | permanent link to this entry
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Mon, 19 Nov 2007
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Sun, 18 Nov 2007
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Sun, 11 Nov 2007
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Mon, 05 Nov 2007
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Sun, 21 Oct 2007
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Sat, 20 Oct 2007
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Sun, 30 Sep 2007
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Its 5am my time, and I've been awake since 3am. Not from choice though -- its the downstairs neighbours waking us up yet again. They're shift workers you see, and must either sleep with construction hearing protection on, or be deaf. Either way, they seem to think its ok to stand outside our apartment at shout at each other at 2am, or slam doors at all hours, or listen to music so loud it vibrates stuff in our apartment basically all night.
We've asked them nicely to turn it down (we used to get on quite well with them at first). We've asked the complex to please do something. We even rung the complex security folk when its happening, and asked for some peace. Its really done nothing to help -- they perhaps turn the music down for 30 minutes until security leaves, and then turn it right back on again.
So, we've run out of ideas, apart from ending the lease early (which will cost an unknown amount of money), and moving somewhere else. We're so serious about doing that that I have started looking around Craigslist already.
Perhaps the floor between apartments is too thin, because the bathroom fans this neighbour leaves on for literally days at a time also vibrates things in the apartment, but either way I think Central Park has pretty much failed to provide us with a livable apartment. We don't want a lot, just some peace after 10pm like the complex rules say we should get.
Grumpy.
Tags for this post: travel( ) usa( ) california( ) mountainview( )
posted at: 05:08 | path: /travel/usa/california/mountainview | permanent link to this entry
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Sat, 09 Jun 2007
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Thu, 22 Mar 2007
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Sun, 04 Mar 2007
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Sat, 24 Feb 2007
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Thu, 22 Feb 2007
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Mon, 01 Jan 2007
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Wed, 27 Dec 2006
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The other day while in Costco (for the foreigners, think Bunnings or some other hardware warehouse, but for food), I was graced with this conversation at the checkout, between two Costco employees:
e1: Where the hell is e3?
e2: Oh, we didn't meet our sales target yesterday, so they cut hours today.
e1: So he's not coming in at all?
e2: Nup
Apparently Costco works out their staffing based on a "budget for the day" which takes into account todays sales target, expected customer load, and whatever they have to "make up" from previous missed targets.
While there is nothing wrong with that, it must suck to be an employee in that environment. I can't imagine not knowing how much work I would have day to day. I used to be a casual, but our rosters were fairly static and worked out weeks in advance. I guess that Australia is headed down this path with the new industrial relations laws as well.
That's not why I finally got around to writing this though. It occurred to me this morning that being able to lay off people instantly based on a micro assessment of the economy must also lead to very reactive economies, which are more vulnerable to downturn. If Costco couldn't lay people off instantly, then the billion dollar company would act as a cushion between small variations in economic state and the rest of the economy. Without that cushion, the laid off employee goes home and spends less (being unemployed for a day and all), which has a big knock on effect for the rest of the economy.
I wonder if there are any studies on the probability of this being a problem compared with countries with more employee protection like Ireland? France probably goes too far for such a study, because the barrier to firing there is so high that it acts as a barrier to hiring as well.
Tags for this post: travel( ) usa( )
posted at: 08:48 | path: /travel/usa | permanent link to this entry
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Mon, 25 Dec 2006
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Fri, 22 Dec 2006
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