Annika and I just got back from Conan O’Brien‘s stop in San Diego at the San Diego Civic Theatre. It was heaps of fun. Would have been even more fun if we hadn’t been in the nosebleed seats – last row of the Balcony. I’ve never been in a theater that was so vertically oriented. It felt like being in a basketball arena – extremely steep. Nevertheless, we could still make out what the small characters on stage were doing.

Conan was always my favorite late night talk show host when I used to actually watch TV. I think his show will be better on cable where he can go even further with his brand of humor.

Since I’ve already told family, friends and finally work, I guess I’ll now tell the world. Annika, Vada and myself will be moving back to Berlin on May 27th. We came to San Diego with the intention of moving back once I was done with school, but after living here and befriending so many great people it was a little hard to finally carry through. Annika grew to love the weather that she thought she’d find monotonous and we really like the South and North park areas of San Diego. But, alas, we’ve got tickets and only a few days after I receive my degree we’ll be gone.

I’ve also put in my notice at work. I wasn’t able to work that many hours anyway due to my school schedule. Dropping the few hours I was working will hopefully make the last two months here less stressful. I learned a lot in my 2.5 years at Geodetics. I’ll miss my co-workers but I can firmly state that I won’t miss programming with MFC.

There is lots to do before we are able to leave. Next week is Spring Break and in addition to wrapping up things at work, I’ll be busy putting things on Craigslist and Ebay. Eventually, we’ll need to get rid of the car and do something with my Vespa. I don’t want to sell my scooter but I definitely can’t afford to send it over; at least not now.

I feel like this move may be our last. Ever since watching the fall of The Wall on TV in 7th grade, I’ve been intrigued by Berlin. After having lived there I fell in love with it and I feel it’s where our small family will be staying for some time.

Now that I’ll be a little less busy I hope to start blogging again. Once I’m in Berlin I’ll have lots to blog about. More on that later.

It appears that digg has been blocked by the San Diego City College District for the last couple weeks. I’ve tried accessing it from City College and Mesa College with the same result. After a minute or so I get the “The connection has timed out” page. I’ve not tried it from Miramar.

Other sites that are a lot less informative are still accessible: Youtube, MySpace, Facebook, etc.

Of course, getting around the block is trivial. Just find a free proxy site and read digg all you want. Unfortunately, digging doesn’t seem to work.

Update: digg it!

Tonight I went to see the Padres play the D-backs. They were down 8 to 0 but almost came back. The game ended 8-7. Now they are only 1 game out of first place. I went with Annika and Matthias, a friend from Berlin. It was his first baseball game but he quickly caught on. By the end of the game he had all the basics down. He goes back to Berlin on Saturday.

Even though they lost ,it was the most exciting one I’ve seen this year. We were seated behind the left-field wall.

This is rant. You’ve been warned. This will hopefully be the last time I ever mention Pacific Nautilus on this blog. Also this is my personal opinion and may or may not be representative of the San Diego City College Robotics Engineering Club and its members. For background read my last post.

It looks like Pacific Nautilus is trying to assemble another team. Actually, when I say Pacific Nautilus it should be clarified that I mean Chris Carter. There is no one, to my knowledge that is still apart of his pseudo-organization. For a second year in a row, an entire team has left Chris. So when Chris writes “we” he is being optimistic. Let me detail why this year’s team left him.

During the first day of the competition Chris and I were the only ones actually at the facility from our team. The first two days are set aside for testing and is also when you have to actually qualify for a spot in the competition. Like many schools, we were having some problems. During this time, there were various people coming around to see what teams were doing and asking questions. While I was trying to trouble shoot the problems and eventually fix them he took every opportunity to tell each and every person that passed how “they”, meaning the team, “wouldn’t listen” to him and hadn’t “kept it simple.” After hearing this 5 times, I was extremely irritated. After 20+ times I was infuriated. Still, I said nothing. I wanted to keep everything as professional as possible. Basically, I was there for 12 hours trying and eventually getting the sub to work all while Chris stood around and talked shit about the work that the rest of the team and myself had put hours upon hours into.

The next day the sub was working and with a few quirks we made it straight through the gate to qualify. At this point Chris starts to change his tone. Instead of “they” he starts to include himself in the teams work by using “we.”

Now lets talk about sponsors. I had identified a source on the Internet for possible sponsorship of hydrophones. I gave Chris the information and he contacted the organization and eventually the guy in charge. This turned out to be a gold mind. The guy made us a set of 4 custom-made, matching hydrophones. he also sent us an adjustable pinger made to match what was used in the competition. Now, however, our team has no hydrophones nor a pinger. These are all in Chris’ possession and, although I’m sure the sponsor was donating them to “the team,” we have no access to these because instead of donating them to the Club they (we believe) were donated to Pacific Nautilus. The same thing happened to a $2500 camera that was donated to the team.

The main difference between Chris and the other team members is that he wanted to have ownership of everything. He wanted to have City College pay for as many things as possible (shirts, entry fee, etc) but he wanted Pacific Nautilus to own the Sub. I and many others wanted to be apart of a project that the next generation of students could work on. Chris hated the idea that what he started could later be controlled by someone else. I had the feeling the entire time that Chris would not be apart of a project of which he was not the leader. We had and have an extremely good team but Chris was never interested in being a team player and I therefore don’t consider him to ever have been apart of “the team”. He was interested only in being the leader.

So now let’s talk about the Pacific Nautilus website. There, Chris lauds the achievement of 2007 team for placing 11th out of 27th. I’d like to correct him. We actually placed 9th as the there was a error in tallying the final score. This will be officially corrected soon. He also lists a fictitious UCSD team which he has been talking about for a year. Chris uses area schools to make Pacific Nautilus sound more reputable. He falsely represents Pacific Nautilus as being somehow in cooperation with San Diego academic institutions. In reality, Pacific Nautilus acted as a barrier in the case of our team. City College was extremely wary of this outside organization that would offer no written agreements. The Club tried on several occasions to get Pacific Nautilus’ relationship with the Club formalized in writing. Chris never wanted this and it never happened. Having formal agreements didn’t allow Chris the flexibility to take his ball and go home. Now that we have completely broke with Pacific Nautilus (and I’m sure because of our success), the school is more willing to offer support.

After a certain point we, the team, all kinda decided that we would put off the politics in order to put together a working sub for the competition. We knew it wasn’t going to be pretty once we expressed to Chris that we no longer desired to have him in charge. We actually never got around to telling him that due to the somewhat dramatic conclusion to the competition.

Wow, this is getting long. Even though I have more to say, I think I’ll cut it short here.

In closing, if you’d like to join or sponsor one of the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle teams in San Diego, you’ve got 2 legitimate teams to choose from: The first team that broke from Pacific Nautilus – San Diego iBotics or the second team that broke with Pacific Nautilus (my team) – San Diego City College Robotics Engineering Club.

Update: We actually placed 9th out of 27 teams. There was an error in the tabulation of the final scores stating we placed 11th. This will soon be changed on the competition website.

This year I and some friends from San Diego City College Robotics Engineering Club took part in the AUV Competition here in San Diego. For the uninitiated, this is an international event that has some of the top engineering schools in the country, and a few abroad, competing against each other. The goal is to build an autonomous vehicle that can navigate an underwater course and carry out specified tasks.

This year our entry, The Seahorse, did extremely well. While the final results have not yet been posted we heard from a good course that we were 11th out of 28. This is exceptional considering that the entries that placed around us had about $20,000 invested in their subs while we spent about $3,000. Additionally, we won the award for Most Improved entry. This year we easily passed through the gate almost every single time and came within inches of surfacing in the octagon several times. We are currently planning for next years event and are confident that we can place even higher.

Our team has also severed ties with Pacific Nautilus. After the close of the event, Chris Carter, who IS Pacific Nautilus, tried to usurp control of the sub although City College and our various team members have receipts for almost every part. After a slight altercation, the sub was taken by the event coordinators. Our Dean of Engineering contacted the event coordinators and the sub is, or very soon will be back in the hands of the school. Thus, it will be available to us for next year’s event. The one or two parts that may belong to Pacific Nautilus will be returned once ownership is clear.

Unfortunately, the products that our sponsors donated – the custom-made hydrophones and titanium underwater camera – are currently in the possession of Chris Carter/Pacific Nautilus. We will soon be in contact with said sponsors in order to let them know what has happened to the products that they intended for the team.

This is the second year in a row that Chris Carter has lost an entire team. The other team reformed as San Diego iBotics and competed in this years event as well. Although it is tempting to join forces, it is obvious that our teams have differing design philosophies. We do wish to cooperate with them in the future, however.

Yesterday, Josh left after a short visit here in San Diego. He came over from Atlanta to do some interviews for design jobs. This was the first time we had seen each other for a couple years and also his first time on the west coast.

He arrived late on Tuesday after driving down from Redwood City, where he was visiting another friend, and interviewing for a job in LA. First thing we did was get a Little Caesar’s $5 cheese pizza and go to the park to eat and chat. The next day we went to Ocean Beach where we had to wait about 2 hours for the marine layer to break-up during which time we strolled along the main drag and eventually onto the longest pier on the west coast. Once the sky was clear, we discovered that the water in the Pacific is freakin’ cold this time of year. After forcing ourselves to get in, we quickly turned back. We had to be satisfied with just sunning ourselves on the beach.

For lunch we went to the best and one of the cheapest mexican places in town, Pokéz. This place is awesome for anyone but it gets plus points from vegetarians and vegans for thier great tofu and veggie options. I got a Chimichanga and josh got a Tofu Burrito. We ended up splitting them. After that we visited Waid and soon thereafter went to bed.

The next day Josh had an interview at a really snazzy design firm in Santa Monica so we got on the road at 7am so there would be no chance of him being late for his 12pm interview. While Josh was in the interview, I walked around The shopping area and ended up spending most of my time at Barnes and Nobles reading up about universities, majors and other school related stuff. Once we met up we headed to Venice Beach which turned out to be really cool. They have a very interesting bunch of street performers there. Unfortunately, when we where leaving Josh backed into a sign. But he has insurance for the rental car so it should be no problem; just a couple small scratches.

On Friday we were both a bit tired so we just hung out and surfed the net for half the day. For lunch we went to Pokéz again. It’s that good. We eventually decided to go see the Padres since we had nothing better to do. We walked to the park which takes about an hour from South Park. on the way Josh a six pack of beer that he wanted to take into the ball park. A couple weeks the folks at the gate had said nothing when I brought in a can of Root Beer so I though it’d be ok. Well, after buying our tickets, we went to the security checkpoint were the lady found the 6-pack and refused to allow the beer in. Josh was upset and said something like, “I just paid 30 fuckin’ dollars!” I took the beer and told here we’d drink a couple then come in. Of course, my intention was to go try our luck at another entrance. Well, the guy at securty checkpoint #2 was an old, probably, retired guy. He acting like he was checking the bag and let Josh through. We chuckled a little once we were through. We then chuckled alot when we found out that the free hand-out that night was a cup. So now, Josh had his beer and a cup to drink it with.

Surprisingly, Josh really liked the experience of the game. Our seats were in the upper deck on the right side. On that side you get a great view of downtown. To get Josh to go to the game I had to really stress that going to see baseball doesn’t have to be about the game. After the game he agreed. Actually we rarely watched the game. Just to the right of us there was a group of kids who were acting up. The two idiots of the group provided everyone with some laughs. For over half the game they had been play fighting and smoking. While “fighting” the two guys got entagled and ended up falling 2 rows into some empty seats. The guy that was sitting in front of them, who was already annoyed, just flipped out and started screaming. Once the guy as finished and turned back around the kids, along with most everyone else, all laughed under there breath. The two idiots decided to smoke another pair of cigarettes. The screaming man got out of his seat to look for security. At this point the group decided to leave the area and that was the end of that.

Other Josh’s obsessing over a small scratch on his rental car, I thought the visit went quite well. Now I’m here all alone again. But only 2 days till I restart my studies after 9 year break.

Last week I found myself in the middle of a car chase. That’s right, a real helicopters-overhead, cops-in-hot-persuit car chase. I’ve even got proof.

While looking for a link to an article about the car chase, I happened upon an article with a small video. If you view the video, I’m the guy on the scooter passing the stolen car in the first seconds. I’m on my lime green Vespa with a white helmet.

While filling my Vespa up at the 7-Eleven on Fern st., I saw 2 police cars race by. Once I was finished getting gas, I got on my scooter and headed north on 30th. Just before reaching Switzer Canyon I noticed a dark grey car coming over the hill. The first strange thing I noticed was that the tires were shredded. There was a young guy driving. He looked completely relaxed; even had his arm resting out the window. He was travelling about 20-30 mph. When I was able to see over the car I noticed a line of about 15 cop cars following neatly behind; in not-so-hot pursuit.

By the time I realized that I could possibly be in some kind of danger, I had already passed the car. I pulled over till the cops passed and contimued on. A few meters ahead I saw another cop rolling in what seemed to be a spike strip. That would have sucked to have gone over that thing on my scooter.

Read the article for the details. And more photos.

All I could do was laugh at the situation. I’m fairly new to California and I get in a car chase just like on TV! How weird is that. First thing I did was go tell Waid. He later said he saw me on the news, which I’m assuming was the footage in the article.

Well, at least it wasn’t a tank.

Tonight I went to a Padres vs. San Francisco game and while the game itself was very eventful, even more eventful was the dispute that came about after the guy sitting in front of me semi-shouted out, “Go Home Homos!” in response to some Giants fans chanting “Let’s Go Giants.”

The dispute started just after the go-home-homos guy’s friend was yelling out “STEROIDS!… BALCO!…etc.” extremely loudly at Barry Bonds about 15 times and caused a guy next to me to quite aggressively tell him to stop the yelling. Well then the steroid-yelling guy stated his rights and mentioned that thing about living in a free country and all. Well, I took this opportunity to tell the go-home-homo guy that I found what he said to be much worse and that it was offensive. He said “Sorry, if I offended you” and I said he probably offended more people than myself. So after the 2 other guys got finished everything simmered down and the guy who told the steroid-yelling guy to stop left.

A while later the two guys go on and on about how everybody around us, shouting anything at all, should just shut up. This was meant sarcastically of course. Eventually, I remarked (which I probably could/should have refrained from) that I think it was more the way he were yelling and the repetitiveness of it that ticked the guy off. –I was REALLY annoyed too but I’d have probably never said anything.– Well, he took the repetitive thing and ran. “The guy with the popcorn is repetitive. He should shut up.”, “The people over there are repetitive. They should shut up.”

We somehow got talking again and I mentioned that the only reason I got into it was that I took offense to the “Go Home Homos!” remark. During the little discussion about whether “homo” is offensive, the go-home-homos guy brings up some guy’s name that I’m not familiar with and repeats, “You don’t know who so-and-so is?” disbelievingly a couple times. I tell him I may not know the guy because I’ve been outside the country for much of my life. He asks me, “where I was?” and I reply, “Berlin.”

He rares back with his eyes widened, as if he’s gotten me now, and blurts out something to the effect off, “Germans fucking burn people over there!” Taken aback I tell him that Germans, including my wife, would take offense to that, being that we were on the subject of offensiveness. He then said something to the effect of “Your wife burned 6 million people in gas chambers.”

At this point I took out my still/video camera which actually helped to intensify the encounter because I simply had to get this stupidity recorded. The steroid-yelling guy says he doesn’t want to be filmed and I tell him he’s in public and I have the rights in this country as he had taught us earlier. He then precedes to tell me to “Go back to Germany and kill some people.” and then insult my wife, which I was later told by our self-appointed mediator, was an attempt to start a fight. Being that I haven’t been around aggressive people in at least decade I didn’t detect this intention. Looking back at the video it was very much an attempt to start a fight. I later explained to them that a fight with me would be the other guy hitting me, me falling and me being hurt.

It basically goes on and on in circles with the “mediator” talking about how I started it (which could be true if you think people shouldn’t object when people say blatantly offensive things) and that the go-home-homos guy was only responding back to an insult by the Giants fans. Our “mediator” claimed that an opposing team rooting for their visiting team in a home stadium is an insult to the home-tea fans. Therefore, insults such as “Go Giants”, “Let’s Go Giants”, “Come on Giants” warrants counter insults such as “Go Home Homos!”

Basically, the three were against me and our “mediator”, who wasn’t there when the “Homo!” comment was made by the way, got the others to apologize and then demanded that I do the same. I didn’t, due to the fact that they were suggesting I apologize for objecting to the “Go Home Homo!” comment. I should have apologized for taking out the video camera, though. I wasn’t thinking about that at the time because it had long been turned off. The camera was a little much and if you guys are reading this, I do apologize for that. And no, I’m not putting it on the net.

I guess the question is if one should even say anything when someone says such things. I think one should. The way I judge it; if you can’t say it to someone’s face, it’s a pretty good sign its insulting and offensive. When this is based on race, sexual orientation, religion or similar it becomes a societal issue. That’s my justification anyway.

Now to answer the question of whether “homo” is offensive; according to these links, “Homo” is very much offensive. “Gay” or “Lesbian” (for women) are preferred and “Homosexual” is acceptable.

One of their arguments was that “homo” is the equivalent to “black”. Of course, I dare say you’d here anyone call out “Go Home Blacks” without hearing some objections. This is explained well here.

True, gay people aren’t widely hated. But fear of a way of life that is foreign to a large part of this country plays a huge role. A lack of understanding prevents empathy, which is why homo doesn’t have the same taboo attached to it as “wop,” “kike” or “chink.”

As an aside, I found it very odd that during the steroid-yelling guys attempts to make me a fighting man, his tactic was to ask me if I liked to suck cock, take it up the ass and so forth. I seems to me that being that the whole point of me saying anything in the first place was to fight homophobia in my own little way, that that wouldn’t be very effective. Doesn’t the fact that such “insults” are used to make “real men” fighting mad show how ingrained homophobia is?

These guys are basically good guys and I know that. I heard quite a few things about George Bush I would agree with, for example. My one insult was that I called the guy an asshole after the “Wife burning Jews” comment and the other guy too, I think, after his insults. The justification of this I’ll leave as an exercise to the reader. Everything got really heated, extremely stupid things were said and my bringing out the camera probably made things worse.

I’ll end by listing things we agreed on:

1. The Padres should’ve won.
2. Bush is an asshole.
3. Germans gassed ~10mill people.
4. Barry Bonds juiced.
5. Food is way too expensive at the ball park.
6. We probably don’t want to encounter each other again.
7. There are homosexuals in San Francisco.

By the way, The Padres lost in the 13th inning. Bummer.

I’ve been in San Diego nearly a week now. The heat wave that was still in effect the first couple days I was here has seemed to have passed. It was still not as bad as it was in Berlin, though.

The first day I had my lovely little scooter (Vespa p200e) on the road a lady backed into it and knocked it over in front of Big Lots near 30th and University. I was coming out of the bank when I saw her struggling to get it upright again. It caused damage along the left side as well as big dent on the right side. Two days after this happened my new neighbor did the same thing. The second fall caused a few additional imperfections. I now have a short clutch lever, which I actually like, and a big dent on the left side to match the right. I hope that was it. Poor scooter.

I went to the city college to get all the info I need about signing up for courses. I’ve got some special issues with my transcripts and was glad to hear that everything will be ok. I’m looking forward to getting back to school. I’ve been brushing up on my algebra and geometry skills. I’d like to transfer into the Computer Engineering program at SDSU although I’m also thinking it would be nice to major in something like Physics in order to widen my possibilities. I’ve got time to decide, still.

I’ve had to take more time off my current project than I’d wanted to. The move is of course one reason. The second reason is because Annika is giving in her thesis tomorrow and I’ve been going through it each night making sure the structure is right and reading through it. She’s in Berlin so there is a 9 hour difference. In a couple hours it will be printed and she’ll be free. Oh…. then she’s got 3 oral exams over the next 6-8 weeks. Then she’ll be free!

Anyway, I’m in San Diego and I’m sure everything will be wonderful from here on out.