Industrial Espionage

I feel silly.  Whenever I start an entry I am prompted to enter my mood and what I am listening to.  The choice of moods is limited and I can't add one.  You would think that since this is a journal nostalgic and  reflective  would be options.  At least there is "silly".  Music?  I heard this tune in my car.  It reminded me of the Church, a group from the eighties.  I made sure to note the artist then I called myself to leave the band's name on my answering machine.  It would have been completely forgotten otherwise.

Subject?  Industrial Espionage.  Funny how the martial terms 'espionage' and 'sabotage' come from the French language.  The suffix 'age' is a French one.  Both terms denote acts of underhanded intelligence.  Are the French underhandedly intelligent?  Something to think about. 

  The Pavilion's in Burbank now provides self checkouts for customers who feel they can do the job better than the people trained to do it.  I took these two pictures using Maria's IPhone...I felt like James Bond but probably looked like Maxwell Smart.  I was curious as to how the machines worked and their efficiency so I had to use them.  I purchased a beer (I was going to buy a beer anyways) to see how the machine would 'check for id' (a good freudian reference would go well, but it might go over your head so I will explain that by id I mean identification).  The machine made no qualms about registering an alcoholic beverage.  I looked up to see that there was an employee overseeing the transactions of the four self-checkouts.  Obviously she had been alerted as to the fact that someone was buying beer at my terminal and she had 'allowed' it when she saw how old I look (stress 'look'). 

Buying beer at noon on a Saturday went smoothly at the Burbank Pavilion's self checkout.  But we returned for some substantial shopping on Sunday evening.  That was an entirely different situation.  The more people use the machines the more of a chance that there will be a snag.  There are things that the average customer has to learn when using the self-checkout.  Registering items that do not have bar codes like apples can be tricky.  How does one use coupons?  What form of payment am I using?  Etc, Etc, many things are happening when one buys groceries.  It was a busy time and every customer that ran into an issue made the wait in line that much longer.  A lot of the checkstand real-estate had gone into making room for the self-checkouts.  As the lines grew I wished the 4 self-checkouts would have remained 2 manned checkstands.  At least there would have been some movement.  The experience proved itself frustrating.

I am sure that this was just Pavilion's feeling some growing pains.  Our culture becomes more and more tech-savy as technology continues to pervade our reality.  It won't be long before the only snag at the self checkout will be the atm-challenged individual who has trouble using his atm card everywhere he (or she) goes. 

Will this make the human checker a thing of the past?  For the time being, I think it just a new option.  Did you get rid of your checking account when you got your debit card? 

 

My Eye!

Found a macro lens I unintentionally bought on my trip to New York five years ago.  These are great if you ever want to take a picture of Lady Bugs which are great picture subjects.  I decided to take a picture of my eye.  Unfortuneately I was by myself and too lazy to use a tripod and remote clicker so the pic's subject appears to be my eyelashes not eyeball as I had intended.  The lashes do look pretty scarce and my eye has those yellow/brown spots which I imagine most of you are speculating are the result of my long standing relationship with distilled hop commodities.  YOU ARE WRONG.  Those are freckles, collections of melanin related to sun exposure or genetic disposition. 

 So why take a pic. of my eye?  Cause I have blue eyes which is not common to people of my nationality or race.  Is race the right word?  Hispanics are considered caucasian right?  Hence there is nothing to distinguish them in racial terms from white people (white people here being a loose term, a vulgar term generally applied to people of Western or Central European heritage except for people from Spain, Italy and I don't know are French people considered white?)  Race is definitely the wrong word.  Nationality, which speaks of my nation of origin, is the better word.  Let's just say that out of the many native spanish speakers I have encountered in my life maybe five have had blue eyes.  So it qualifies as rare. 

I was walking out the gym some time ago and one of the employees stopped to ask me what color my eyes were.  Green or blue?  The question struck me as stupid.  Color is a phenomena of the mind.  It is an act of interpretation not empirical data.  Color is how light is interpreted by our mind.  Many factors will sway that interpretation; amount and quality of light being outstide factors.  Also the amount of color receptors or cones in the perceptor's eye will play a role in what color you see.  An eye which is a pretty reflective surface, being wet most of the time, will possess a color which is very malleable by surrounding circumstances. 

You can imagine the reaction of the gym employee when I went into my diatribe on color.  The lesson being "Watch who you try to make small talk with!"

Goodand Bad are sometimes also phenomena of interpretation.  Sitting here on this rainy "gray" day.  I look out my window...

and watch the low clouds traverse across the sylmar foothills.  It is a lovely sight.  Rainy days are bad because they slow down traffic, one gets wet, one gets sick, hair is hard to manage, one has to stay indoors and many other reasons.  They are good cause I get to watch the clouds cross the hills.

Fact Sylmar is named after the 'sea of trees' once present here when the largest grove of Olive trees in the world once here resided.  See Wiki Article

Same thoughts different year

Milo's favorite shirt best expresses my feelings towards the passing of another year.  Still, I hope everyone had a happy and safe new year and that it brings many good things to all of you. 

Haven't had time to write much these days.  The holidays have kept me busy.  Not only is time scant (trying to use seldom used words even when they sound innapropriate.  Scant? just say scarce, you loqacious fool.  Maybe I am not loquacious but a bit garrulous.)  But the enthusiasm is also elsewhere.  I have tried to sit down and write and all I get is forced automotive contemplations like the one below.

Had a great Christmas.  Got great stuff!  A Bee Gees compilation!  Lately I can't listen enough to "Nights On Broadway".  I have been working on a Barry Gibb falsetto in case I ever get drunk enough at a Karaoke bar. 

An unexpected surprise was this:

Explanation?  Let's just say that being unconditionally nice and courteous, sometimes (not all the time) pays off. 

Christmas is great that way!  This sounds weird, but I love when I get a present from someone I did not get something for.  It seems more genuine.  There is a line from a song I like that goes, "You didn't have to do it but you did it to say, that you didn't have to do it but you would anyway."  That is the sentiment I am trying to describe:  Something unwarranted.

So, anyways, I am fine thanks.  Maria and Milo are doing well.  Looking forward to the new year.  Erick is still in traffic (if you were wondering, sono in transito continues!)

Related note:  I am reading a novel where a character goes to see a fortune teller.  The fortune teller tells him, "yes many things will happen to you."  She adds, " I could tell you about them but what's the use?  You will remain the same person throughout them."

I hope to write again soon.

Take care! 

aoljpictureUpload, aoljpictureUpload_1

Picture from wikipedia entry on Z's

I saw an oder model Z in the Century City parking lot.  It was definitely a 70's model and it looked a lot like the FairLady in the picture above.  I am not an enthusiast enough to know what stage in restoration the car was but I know I was quite taken by it.  I walked around the car admiring it.  My age was in the one-digits in the seventies but I remember this being one of the more prominent cars of the time.  By prominent I mean seeing it often.  I think the design easily rivals a car that was dramatically less accessible to the average consumer; the Porsche 911 was around at the same time.

The Nissan looks a lot more sleek, I think.  The shape communicates function better.

I think I'll leave car critiques to experts.  But my point is that I might just walk by the latter but stop and awe at the former.

Have a nice week!

 

angels and ambiguities

It is starting to get cold.

What are you looking at?

So I took this great picture of wind chimes in front of a setting sun:

It is an angel praying.  I used a flash to defeat the backlighting unfortuneately the formats on this blog do not flatter the pic.  So I attached the pic to my invitation in case you are curious.

Not much going on here.  Working a lot.  I realized that I am getting a bit lazy in terms of self-edification.  So I took some steps toward fixing that.  First off I went to the library and checked out a book.  I was originally going to check out Ben Franklin's autobiography but I started reading the first page and skimming further and realized that I have too long been removed from literal pursuits.  I then caroused to the fiction section and found the Vonnegut area.  Satirical sci-fi is a good genre to start my pathway towards the land of the Litteratti.  Just not ready for anything to heavy right now.

I also bought a Nintendo DS and a couple of their brain games.  I hope those synapses are still firing.

But essential to any progress will be my engaging more physical activity.  And for that I have to limit my time in front of the television and, alas, the computer.  I will start scheduling more workouts and walks.  One can only hope.

Ambiguities?  I was listening to a radio commercial the other day and at the end a disclaimer stated that the product was " not available in all states."  Why advertise at all then?

Time Article

Anyone else intrigued by the cover story in Time the week of 10/28?  I was, so I bought a copy.  I learned something.  Did you know that Shirley Maclaine and Warren Beatty are siblings?                                               

I didn't. 

The article is really quite fascinating to anyone who suscribes more to "nurture" than to "nature" in regards to social development.  I wouldn't want to hurt Time sales by paraphrasing the article here, but I would like to mention one point the article made that struck a chord with me; that elder siblings "(enjoy) on average a three-point IQ advantage over the next eldest-probably a result of the intellectual boost that comes from mentoring younger siblings and helping them in day-to-day tasks."  I have always believed that you better comprehend things when you have to explain or teach them to someone else.  It is the difference between comprehending a process and doing it by rote or mechanically.  When I was going to school whenever I couldn't really get a grasp on something I would pretend that I needed to teach it to a class of my peers the next day.  That would help.

Real fun article.  There are some examples from the animal and plant world of parental prefference geared towards elder offspring.  Fun facts, fun facts, pick up the issue. 

  Some week huh?

All the smoke in the air made it possible for me to take this picture of a setting sun without the use of filters.  Unfortuneately, I didn't have a tripod so there is a little bit of tracing above the sun caused by my pushing the shutter button. 

I hope anyone whose life was affected by the winds and fires will soon be able to put things in order.  Maria, Milo and myself had to go stay with my parents because the power was out for two daysat our place.  But, most wicked of all, I had to cancel any outdoor activities on my day off because the smoke could damage my eyes and lungs.  That hurt!  It brings to mind how much we take for granted the fact that 95% of the time our lives are pretty much okay.

  Take care!

October already!?

Wow, it is October!  The scary thing is we don't know how Curious George got up there. 

Sometimes at night I hear little feet scrambling in the living room and I think I know why now.

I haven't been able to play with "sono in transito" lately and I feel bad.  Even right now I feel the same as when I come home tired and obligate myself to play with Milo; who waits for me at the top of the stairs cause the dead air which escapes the space between the steps forbids him from coming down.  He has no problem going up the stairs though.  Back to my point, I feel like I am forcing it.  I enjoy writting, contemplating the most precise use of diction and syntax to convey meaning is an activity I have been drawn to since I was a child.  Not unlike the artist trying to capture his world and mind through paint on canvass, I feel a pleasureable release of energy when an idea has been most-effectively communicated.  Yet it is hard for me to make time for it.  I am not blaming my busy schedule cause if you really want to do something you do it whether it is five minutes you can squeeze in in-between obligations or in the middle of the night when you have sacrificed an hour of sleep towards this activity which you realize enriches your soul.  You just do it. 

And so, as the clock continues forward and warns me that I only have 30 minutes to walk Milo before getting ready for work, I wonder if the sacrifice has been worth it.  Was what I said meaningful or pertinent?  You tell me.  I will see it as a mental warm up, a way of re-affirming processes of the mind much like you would movements of the body.