On Saturday, the entire family (Mom & Dad O, the two exchanges students, Katie, and I) headed out to Washington D.C to see all the Cherry Blossoms. We all were in agreement that taking the Metro would be a much better idea then trying to find a place to park in D.C. It was quite busy at the Springfield-Franconia Metro station, but we expected that. We had an uneventful trip to the Smithsonian stop on the Blue Line of about 35 to 40 minutes (Keep in mind, the Blue Line is the only line for the Springfield-Franconia Station). We stayed for a few hours and took a lot of pictures of the Cherry Blossoms (link provided at the end) then we decided to return home. This is where the fun begins.

As we are standing around waiting for Dad O. to put more money on our fair cards so we can get home, we see a little message about increased police activity at the Pentagon City station and that the station was closed.  We didn’t think anything about it even though that station is on the Blue Line.  I mean the station is closed, but the trains are still running through right?  WRONG!  This is where all our troubles began.  After we boarded the train along with hundreds of other people and we start heading down the tracks, the driver notifies everyone that the train will be stopping at the Arlington Cemetery station and we will all have to get off and shuttle buses will be provided to get to the other stations.  We wait about 5 minutes and the driver comes back on the speaker telling us that the train will now be stopping at the Pentagon (one stop down) and shuttles will be provided from there.

So, a while later we end up at the Pentagon along with hundreds of other people (and hundreds if not a thousand people outside)  and we all head outside towards the bus area.  During the escalator ride up, I discover the reason for the Pentagon City station being closed.  A bomb threat and suspicious package.  So we all hit topside and what do we find?  Not a shuttle bus in sight.  Nope, not a single one.  Just normal buses running their regular routes.  On top of that, there is only one transit work and she had no idea what is going on.  The amount of disorganization by the WMATA was beyond belief.  Hundreds to Thousands of people stranded because of their ineptitude.

We stood around for a good 10 minutes while Dad O tried to see if the lady knew anything, once it was established that she did not, we all made out way towards the taxi area as we felt taking a taxi to a different metro stop past the Pentagon City was our best shot of getting home now.  Once we get down the the taxi stand, Dad O attempts to call the taxi company, but no one was answering after another 10 minutes or so.  At this point we start walking up the street as other people seem to be having luck catching taxis coming off the highway.  As luck would have it, we managed to catch two empty taxis (we had 6 people and needed two), one right behind the other.  At this point we decided to catch the metro at National Airport.  After a very scary taxi ride (I think he tried to kill us at least 2 times), we made it to the airport we an approximate cost of $10 per taxi.

From there, the metro ride was uneventful, but still quite packed.  We eventually made it back to Springfield and with an additional 15 min drive back to the house.  Total travel time:  3 hours.  That is around 4 to 5 times longer than it took us to get out there.  I can’t believe how horribly managed this situation was by the WMATA.  I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would be like if there was an actual emergency and not just a scare.

Anyway, here are the Cherry Blossom and Easter Pictures as promised.

Cherry Blossoms and Easter 2010

Also, There have been some new pictures of Gimzo and Teddy uploaded.  They are the pictures at the end of the album.

New Pictures of Gizmo

New Pictures of Teddy

And finally, Katie’s flowers have started growing in the back of the house and I have managed to (mostly) complete our paver walkway that goes from the driveway to the door on the side of the garage.  As before, pictures are at the end of the album.

New Pictures of the House

Refraction
Noun
Physics
1. the change in direction of a wave, such as light or sound, in passing from one medium to another in which it has a different velocity

After a few days of pondering life in general, I have gathered a good idea of what is going on and it relates to the word above.  I have never been good at metaphors, but I am at least going to try.

Life is like a wave.  Waves typically travel in an up and down pattern and does life.  You have your ups and downs along the way.  Each of our waves has it’s own amplitude, some of us go up real high and them come down real low while others is pretty shallow.  The question is, what happens when the wave is refracted?

In the terms of physics (as stated above), when a wave is refracted, due to passing from one medium to another, its velocity changes.  When the velocity is different, the wavelength also changes.  If life is like a wave, then the medium upon which refraction can occur could be considered a major life changing event.  Life could then become a crazy ass roller coaster ride with steep ups and downs or maybe it just smoothes out and everything is easy sailing.  Of course, all that could be reversed in an instant.

The problem people need to learn is that refraction isn’t a bad thing.  It’s just a change of pace.  No matter what happens, you need to learn to deal with this changes and the outcomes that they bring in a positive way.  If everything is looked at from a pessimistic point of view, you are likely to hurt or anger the people around you as well as yourself.

One thing we have both learned in the past few years is the easiest way to hurt or anger those close to us is to not listen. And by listen I don’t just mean the hearing process. But actually understanding what is being said and why it is being said. Not only that, but to listen to everyone; to obtain all viewpoints on a situation to have a more accurate understanding of what is happening. Too often it seems we get so caught up in our own realities we fail to see how our realities affect other realities.

A couple of quick side notes.  I’ve heard that at least one person took our last post personally.  It was never intended to inflict harm in anyway.  The purpose of the post was a to allow people to have a insight into what Katie and I have been thinking for the past month or so.  We needed some time to take a step back and look at our life together. I have partially edited the previous post.

The other note, most of the pictures from Katie’s graduation and some recent pictures of the pets have been uploaded.  I’ll add the remainder when we get them from mom.

Now that Katie has finished up school and graduated (Yay Katie!), we’ve had a chance to step back and take a look at our life and the direction it is going.  No one is truly ever sure of what their future holds for them, but I think we can influence it by the actions we take and the people we interact with.

Truthfully, if there has ever been a time for me to question the direction on which my life is going and whether I’m at the right place, doing the right things, surrounded by the right people now is it.  Really I shouldn’t just say my life, since I have to have Katie’s best interests in mind too.  We are one now. . .we are the Chatie!  Anyway, this has all stemmed from a particularly nasty email Katie and I found in our inboxes this morning from a “friend.”  The details of this message are going to remain only with the people who it concerns, but it is the main reason for all of our reflections this morning.  This isn’t going to be a rant attempting to chastise this person or anyone else,  I am better than that.

One big thing that we have realized is that only the ones that truly love you or are considered “true to the core” friends can be fully trusted with anything.  These other “people” out there just misconstrue and fabricate things for the betterment of themselves.  My mother basically put it that I have lost my innocence.  This could quite possibly be true.  I mean maybe we have been putting to much trust in these people, this definitely hasn’t been the first time it has backfired, but most likely it will be the last.  Next time, we won’t be able to be caught off guard.  We will learn to choose our friends more wisely and distance ourselves from the ones we feel don’t match with us.

That brings up my point of who Katie and I have surround ourselves with.  I’m starting to question if they are the right people.  Yes we get along with them, we have good laughs with them, and generally enjoy each others company.  It comes down to the drama that is caused, apparently by Katie and I in some way or another and we don’t even know how.  It is like these people thrive on conflict and since Katie and I are typically passive about it, they get angry at us.  Maybe Katie and I should just ignore everything that’s going on around us and let these people learn the hard way that we aren’t doing anything to harm them.

The other point is we have to look out for our future family and ask ourselves questions about these people.  Do we really want our children around jobless and seemingly unmotivated people?  Do we want to take our children to parts of the town that aren’t the best because these friends chose to live there?  Do we want our children around people who help run a business where part of it’s sales are related to a borderline illegal activity?  The problem is, if we try to answer these questions now what happens if we are wrong.  What happens when the jobless friends get jobs and/or degrees or the other friends move to safer areas or the business model changes?  We lose friends, but is this a sacrifice we are willing to take?  In reality though, it is any real concern if we are around these people or what they do away from us?  They don’t try to influence they decisions and ways of life on us and we try not to do it to them.  I am thinking the best course of action is to confront this questions IF (and looking back on it, that is a big if) there is ever a problem that arises from it.  Life’s too short to worry about these things right now.

I feel as though I have made the right decision with my career paths, but Katie is questioning hers.  She hasn’t been able to find a job yet, but it is still early in the search.  I think the thing coming down on both of us the hardest is family asking questions that are none of their business.  For example asking her how much pay her future job holds (money isn’t everything people!) and how long would it take her to get her Pharm-D degree (hello people., a pharmacist is going to be replaced by a computer in the next decade anyway).  Katie is happy with her choices and you people should support her with whatever she does.  I am very grateful for our friends supporting her throughout her entire schooling and job search and not questioning her moves.

In closing, maybe Katie and I aren’t fit to be where we are.  Maybe we need to be around more “yuppies” (god I hate that word) like us.  Maybe we need people around us with college degrees, who live in the suburbs, and sit around sipping a glass of wine on the back deck.  Maybe we don’t.  Maybe we are fine with the people we are with now.  It sure does make it hard to tell when one wakes up, walks over to their blackberry and sees an e-mail that destroys trust and presents an ultimatum when we were only trying to help.

The basic premise is that a "terrorist" has control over the air traffic control system of the entire US (don’t ask, that is another problem completely).  Well this guy doesn’t get what he wants from the government and decides to redirect one aircraft into another and of course KABOOM!  Planes hit each other and a tragedy happens.

Anyway, back on planet earth, this isn’t possible.  I thought it was just common knowledge about the Traffic alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) that has been mandated on all passenger jets since 1993.  If we look a little further in to this article we can see where the writers really went wrong.

The Traffic alert and Collision Avoidance System (or TCAS) is an aircraft collision avoidance system designed to reduce the incidence of mid-air collisions between aircraft. It monitors the airspace around an aircraft for other aircraft equipped with a corresponding active transponder, independent of air traffic control, and warns pilots of the presence of other transponder-equipped aircraft which may present a threat of mid-air collision (MAC).

. . .

TCAS II is the second and current generation of instrument warning TCAS, used in the majority of commercial aviation aircraft (see table below). It offers all the benefits of TCAS I, but will also offer the pilot direct, vocalized instructions to avoid danger, known as a "Resolution Advisory" (RA). The suggestive action may be "corrective", suggesting the pilot change vertical speed by announcing, "descend, descend", "climb, climb" or "Adjust Vertical Speed Adjust" (meaning reduce vertical speed). By contrast a "preventive" RA may be issued which simply warns the pilots not to deviate from their present vertical speed, announcing,"monitor vertical speed" or "maintain vertical speed". TCAS II systems coordinate their resolution advisories before issuing commands to the pilots, so that if one aircraft is instructed to descend, the other will typically be told to climb — maximising [sic] the separation between the two aircraft.

So, basically that paragraph is saying that this can’t even happen.  Not only do the aircraft communicate with each other and tell the pilots what to do, it does it without the knowledge of ATC.  Therefore this scenario could almost (I say almost, because there could possibly be a time when the corrective measures work) never happen.

Besides this, let’s not forget the whole idea that everything vital to our government is behind one massive firewall (err. . .what?) that is controlled solely by the NSA (makes little more sense).  Then there is the statement from another show where they want to do a "Reverse IP Lookup" (a what??) by building a GUI Interface (a Graphical User Interface Interface?  Hello Department of Redundancy Department!) using Visual Basic (errrm. . . we won’t every touch that with a ten foot pole).  We then have to ignore the fact that they get an IP address back with something like "312.523.643.12".  This is not even possible in the IPV4 range which can only go up to 255.255.255.255, but even that block is reserved for  broadcast.  Sigh. . .I guess I should give up.

So, I implore all those TV show writers (who will 99.999999999% chance never read this), use Wikipedia to do some research before you release your script to the world.

Before I started writing I thought I had a pretty good grasp of what I was talking about when it comes to this receptor. But, the more I read to get the facts precise, the more I realize it’s so much more complicated than I ever believed. And thus, I get more confused so I have to read more to understand what I don’t understand.

But on a different note, we managed to get a download of Windows 7. Naturally we didn’t put it on one of our main rigs, but still one that would get enough to use to find out how well it works — my laptop. Luckily it’s not laid out much differently than Vista. It’s similar to experiencing Office 2007 when you’re used to Office 2003 in terms of XP to 7. The hiding all open windows features is nice. And with the themes it rotates through a stack of pictures for the background (which for someone who likes to change backgrounds often (i.e. me) it’s nice). Oh yeah, and the jumplists! /smile

Well I’ve wasted enough time here, back to re-reading what I’ve written to expand upon it further.

The real purpose of anymore political articles I write up will be to curb the smear crap that is getting sent around.  That include either candidate.  Even though I really haven’t seen any McCain smearing.  Anyway, when I have some more free time, I’ll post the remainder of this post with my first debunking of an Obama smear.

There is some issue where the sunroof will begin to close, then bounce back open.  I know of the problem, but it’s hard to reproduce so the dealer can’t do much about it.  I had been doing good checking it to make sure it was closed, but Wednesday night I was distracted by Katie almost getting run over by another car.  So apparently, it opened back up and I didn’t see it. 

Anyway, I am now off to vacuum it out really well, clean the leather seats and the dashboard.  Hopefully there will be no mildew that forms or anything.  Don’t want a smelly truck. . .

But it was all good once we go here. We ate at a local restaurant “Dixie Crossroads” which has a variety of fresh seafood items. We’ve eaten there several times before but it’s always a great time. Then went back to chill in the pool for the afternoon. We spent the evening after dinner become big kids again while helping Jay dye Easter eggs and decorate his Easter basket for the Easter bunny.

Back with more later.

Some of the interesting things we noticed along the way:

• South of the Border signs start as you enter NC
• One of the funniest South of the Border signs read “You never sausage a place (You’re always a weiner at Pedro’s)”
• As do signs to get discount tickets and hotels for Orlando, once you got to the exit it didn’t look like much though
• A house on fire, I feel bad for the family
• And you can’t take pictures in the car at night while you’re moving, the flash interferes and takes way too long

Ok, that’s enough for now.