Rube Goldberg Would Have Been Proud

When I was young I had this boardgame called Mousetrap. I forget the premise of the game but the one thing I do remember is that when you arrived to a certain point it set off a chain of events that eventually trapped the mouse. That was probably my first introduction to a Rube Goldberg Invention and I have been intrigued by them ever since.

I was recently forwarded this link to a video that would have had Mr. Goldberg jumping with joy. I find it hard to believe that it came out three years ago and I'm just now finding out about it. It's pretty amazing and although I was a little disappointed to find that it's made of two takes spliced together, it's still a spectacular feat of engineering.

Check it out here: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/honda.php

Also, to find out more information on it, you can read the original e-mail that was going around and the corrections to it at http://www.snopes.com/autos/business/hondacog.asp.

Happy Centennial!

Well, I don't know that you can say 'happy' when celebrating a major disaster. One hundred years ago today, at 5:12 am, the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906 struck. And the fear of the next one keeps me in business. I was hoping for a little (or big) celebratory tremor to mark the centennial but I suppose Mother Nature doesn't observe the Gregorian calendar.

Actually, my fear is that they'll have the next big one and I won't be here. What a bummer that would be. And for those of you who live in earthquake country, make sure you have your disaster kits ready. I'd like to say that I'm prepared but I'm woefully behind. Check out 72hours.org for any suggestions.

Another New Office

It was just a couple posts ago that I was showing a picture of my new office. Well news came in that this building was sold and that we all had to move out by May 1. That created a mad rush to find a new place quickly. My friend, Sandra, and I decided to find a place together since we might be able to find something larger that we could make our own. We thought it wouldn't be that hard but there wasn't as much availability as we thought and prices were higher than we expected. But as luck would have it, we only looked at a couple places before finding one that fit our needs. It's not quite in the downtown I was envisioning but it's close and it works well for both of us. Plus we get to make the space ours. We're currently in the process of painting; the carpet is on order and will arrive Friday; and we'll build the partition walls next week as well as move in the majority of our furniture. It's going to look fabulous. I'll post pictures once it's ready but for now you can check out the floor plan.

Kids These Days

I heard this joke from the mouth of a 4-year-old girl this weekend:

A pirate walks into a bar with a ship's steering wheel tied to his penis.

The bartender says, "Hey man, you have a steering wheel hanging from your penis."

And the pirate says, "Arrr, I know, it's drivin' me nuts."

March Madness

The real madness of March was the unbelievable amount of rain we received here. It rained 25 out of 31 days here in San Francisco and it's not supposed to stop for another couple weeks. It's even pouring at this very moment. That sort of puts a damper on doing anything outdoors here but it's been great for skiing and snowboarding. They have so much snow in Tahoe that the resorts don't even have planned closing dates so there should be spring skiing well into May.