TMI: It was 20 years ago today...

... a scrawny young college graduate walked into a shiny little office building in Belmont, California for his first day of work. He had been hired despite some people raising reservations that during the interviews a few days earlier, he came across as possibly being too shy to talk to customers on the phone. But others argued that the kid knew Unix, networking, and SQL and thought logically about a question even when given a vague problem description with no clear cut answer.

Fortunately, that department I interviewed with was desperate for employees, and I was desperate for a job, so apparently, it was a match made in heaven. I was even hired as an hourly temp so I could start quickly while the official papers were still going up the management chain for approvals.

Recently, I have been delivering technical presentations to a few groups of people around the country (and having the unenviable task of following Tom Kyte in some cases). Each time, I have tried to come up with a different way to introduce myself. The opening line starts out the same, then I improvise an ending. The attempts that were worth remembering went a little like this:

"Hello, my name is Roderick Manalac, and I'm N days away from celebrating 20 years here..."

- ".. and I hope with 5 more years of good behavior, I will finally be granted parole."
- "Thank you. But little did I know this would be my longest relationship with anybody in my life. I just hope this qualifies me to get a decent percentage of Larry's wealth in a divorce settlement."
- "And yes, it does feel like 140 in dog years."
- "I've thought about resigning and driving away in a convertible, but I fear that while I'm packing my bags, someone will gas my room, knock me out, strand me on an island, and the people there will only refer to me as Number 6."

In all seriousness though, I feel very fortunate to have landed a great job with a consistently successful company. I have met a bunch of nice, intelligent people within the corporation and at customer sites around the world. The technology evolves so quickly that I still learn several new things each day. And I have grown up from a shy nerd who could barely say "Hello" on the phone with a very shaky voice to a computer geek who could stand in front of hundreds of people and confidently tell a series of dumb jokes interspersed with a few nuggets of useful technical information.

I have enjoyed the experience, and I hope this gig continues for many more years.

Travel: The World is Flat

Someday I will start publishing more photos of my travels over the years. The hard part is most of my pictures were taken with old-fashioned film so I will have to spend time digitizing them. And then I might pay for a photo hosting site. I am leaning towards sticking with flickr.

Not sure why I am starting with this photo. It really does nothing to show where I am. But I thought it was interesting to see a US citizen of Filipino descent enjoying a traditional South American beverage in a Ukrainian Cafe (Kofein) with an African decor.

Amazing Race 12: Final Episodes

I only recently caught up with season 12 of the Amazing Race and I am 4 or 5 episodes behind on season 13. That is one downside of having a DVR -- I can delay watching something practically forever. The technology is still not perfect. I may have missed an episode or 2 along the way, and I think I lost my notes on another episode.

I will only make my comments brief, so I can start watching Season 13. Hopefully, I will figure out how to balance work, housework, a social life, and all my various interests and hobbies so I can write more in my blog in the future.

First of all, congratulations to TK and Rachel for winning this race. It is always great when the team with the most good karma wins. I think they were my favorites from the beginning (it has been a long time and I did not go back to review my notes from Episode 1). Those two really had a cool way approaching life, the challenges of the race, and each other. It is sort of an attitude I strive for and hopefully achieve from time to time. Perhaps being cool and nice does not create many dramatic, exciting scenes, but it would be nice to see more of that on TV and in real life for that matter.

Jen and Nate were practically a polar opposite of TK and Rachel. They were focused so much on winning each leg and were pretty much selfish and self-centered to the point where they could not work with other teams or with each other. But as annoying as they were portrayed, I still felt bad that they were eliminated on Jen's birthday. When the race ended for them, I did get a gut feeling that they realized what their problems were, and that learning from their experiences would help them mature.

I hated Ron in the first few episodes of the season. Fortunately, it turned out he was a good man at heart. It was interesting that as his attitude toward his daughter improved, the team's standing in the race improved. They may not have won the race, but the father and daughter developed a bond that is worth more than a million dollars.

The funniest moment of the final 2 episodes was Nate thinking that he would get great Thai food in Taiwan. I am sure there are good Thai restaurants in Taiwan (and the rest of the world for that matter). Hopefully, Miss Teen South Carolina 2007 gives Nate a map later.

Another slightly funny moment, that happened so quick you could miss it,was when Ron was filleting a huge cod. He told his daughter not to stand so close because he was not sure how to handle a knife. I am not sure why I thought it was humorous. Maybe because I don't trust myself with a knife either...

I probably would have made my teammate ride the jeep underwater. I think I can hold my breath for 15 or so seconds, but that water just looked very dirty. I wonder how many people ruined their cars trying the same thing at home and not knowing how important it is to have a car with a snorkel attached to the engine.

Someday I hope I can get back to Anchorage, Alaska. I booked a helicopter tour there that included walking on a glacier, but the weather was unsafe only day I was there. The speed boat ride looked fun too. If I do take another cruise to Alaska I will try to check out the Icy Strait Zip Line. It may not have existed when I was there.

Travel: San Francisco Bay

Been a while since I posted anything here. Someday I'll even comment on the final two episodes of the Amazing Race which I still have to watch. Hopefully, I will get that done and post my comments before the next season starts.

In the meantime, I have been keeping my nose to the grindstone at work. I have not been on a plane in months, but if I had to be stuck anywhere, the San Francisco Bay Area is the place to be. I recently had the privilege of going on a bay cruise on a "Blue and Gold" ferry (Go Bears). It allowed me to see the sights from a different perspective. It was a nice tour of both the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, Alcatraz, Angel Island, and McCovey Cove behind AT&T Park.

This photo is of the Golden Gate Bridge about an hour or so before sunset. With all the wildfires going on in California it made for a surreal scene. I thought the Bridge might blend into the background, but it turned out okay.

TV: Amazing Race 12: Ep 8

After last week's episode, this week seemed a bit more tense. Maybe because the teams visited the busiest city in the world. Maybe because the Goths had a penalty to serve and it was guaranteed to be an elimination leg. I did not even note who came in first. The whole show was basically a race between the Goths and Nate/Jen for second to last place. In the end, Jen got a friendly bit of help while Kynt misread directions completely and lost.

The leg began with all the teams trying to book flights from Florence, Italy to Mumbai, India. Fortunately not too much time was spent on airport drama as it turned out all the teams would get bunched together waiting for a news stand to open in Mumbai.

I spent a day in that city a few years ago, and it is true that the first thing that hits you is the smell from the pollution and the crowds and various other things -- especially around the International airport. Some of the teams wore masks while waiting for the stand to open.

Jen / Nate were the last to find a clue hidden as an ad within a newspaper. It was not the hardest task in the world, but they never figured out how to divide and conquer the search. Fortunately for them the Goths had a pretty bad taxi driver and immediately had to perform the Speed Bump penalty. They were sent off to a different part of the city to perform Yoga exercises. Maybe it was a good penalty for them since they had gotten so tense in Italy.

The next challenge was a detour involving putting up a movie poster or stringing a flower necklace together. This is one of the few times in this race where the teams divided almost equally between the two tasks. The grandfather / grandson team finished the poster first since the grandfather had some experience with billboards. TK and Rachel finished the flowers first working well together as a team. Ron and his daughter took longer with the poster with Ron acting mean again. Finally Nate / Jen struggled with the flowers almost as bad as they did with the newspaper with the Goths making up a bunch of time.

The roadblock challenge was very similar to several others in this race. Deliver items to certain addresses in a part of town where the streets might be hard to navigate and pick up proof of delivery. This was one of the few times where physical strength was needed with TK being able to carry a bunch of propane tanks at once and finishing in first ahead of the grandson.

Ron risked aggravating his hernia but still finished before the last two teams would fight it out to avoid elimination. Somehow the Goths arrived at the final challenge moments before Nate / Jen but then committed a huge tactical error by choosing to enforce the U-turn -- but on the wrong team. Had they chose Nate / Jen, they would still be racing. But trying to take out the Grandfather / Grandson team was a mistake since they were already ahead, and at that point they incurred the wrath of the karma gods. Both Kynt and Jen misread the directions. Kynt was exchanging the order with the receipt when he should have kept both, while Jen forgot to pick up the receipt from the door completely. The two even crossed paths insind one building where Kynt picked up additional bad karma by keeping an elevator stuck on the second floor to temporarily prevent Jen from making a delivery to the 5th floor. Eventually one of the customers reminded her to pick up the receipt. At that point she realized she had to go back to the first customer and pick up that receipt as well. Kynt did not realize his mistake until he thought he had completed the task. By then it was all over, though they could have gotten lucky with the taxi ride to the Pit Stop. But it was not meant to be.

In the next episode, it appears TK and Rachel choose a road less traveled. But will it pay off? I cannot wait to watch it but I will be on the road myself.

TV: Amazing Race 12: Ep 7

This leg of the race turned out to be scenic but fairly non-eventful. The granfather / grandson team took a fast forward that involved getting tattoos and ended up winning a trip to Cancun. The Goths may have gotten lost on the roads of Italy and finished last. Luckily it was a non-elimination pit stop but they face a new twist of a Speed Bump (an extra challenge) in the next leg.

The teams were bunched up pretty quickly when taking a ferry across the Adriatic to Italy. At that point teams had to drive to a town called Empoli. Some of the teams did not know about road construction and ended up either waiting in traffic or taking some windy side roads to the next clue box.

From there, the Road Block challenge had one of the team members riding an ultralight plane over Tuscany in search of a clue from the sky. It was almost a needle in the haystack style challenge. Either TK had a particularly hard time seeing the clue, or he just loved the scenery so much that he went back up three times while all the other teams passed him up. I do not have much of a fear of flying, but I imagine that in an ultralight I might have grabbed something so tight, there would be a hand shaped dent in it.

TK and Rachel had a tough time overall. First they left a clue behind before going to Empoli and had to turn around and retrieve it. But they were fortunate someone told them a faster route to take with the construction going on. Then TK could not see the clue from the sky that told them to go to Vinci. Then they had a flat tire driving to the pit stop.

Somehow TK and Rachel still beat the Goths who had their own car breakdown and started to snipe at each other. Ron also seemed mean to his daughter again. Nate and Jen continued sniping at each other yet always managed to finish near the top.

The tattoos seemed kind of small. It was funny to hear the grandfather hope they would have to shave their heads instead. Tattoos supposedly can be removed these days, but I have little clue on the details of cost. As much as I avoid getting a tattoo, I suppose I might keep the FF under the circumstances.

Next week we get to see if the Goths can survive doing an extra challenge. Somehow they don't seem to be very long or require much physical endurance this season. Maybe that changes next week.

TV: Amazing Race 12: Ep 6

In this episode, it was another case of airport drama as teams tried to catch early flights from Lithuania to Croatia. Not listening to details probably cost the race for the brother / sister team who had one several of the early legs. They were booked business class seats instead of economy by a travel agent. It was hard to tell if the agent was just upselling or if the economy seats for a flight other teams were on were all booked anyway. In any case, the order of arrival in Croatia mostly determined the order of finish for the racers.

Actually Nate and Jen kept messing up and still finished 3rd in spite of themselves. They arrived in Croatia first but got lost trying to find the first clue box, which allowed the father / daughter team to go into first. Then they were turned down by a taxi driver for being too wet. They were so frustrated by this, they desperately broke the rules and coaxed a local to become a taxi driver to the pit stop. They were caught and had to go back to hire a real taxi. That allowed the Goth team to pass them up for second place. The editing made it look like their relationship has no hope. But maybe they do belong to each other despite the arguing. They sort of remind me of The Needlers from Saturday Night Live. Nate also had the quote of the episode with his reference to a "cherry on top of a melted sundae."

TK and Rachel cruised into 4th place. They and the grandfather / grandson team (5th place) missed a connecting flight in Prague. It is a beautiful city to be stuck in I must say, but I suspect these poor teams never saw anything outside the Prague airport. I never saw the airport myself since I took a very scenic train ride to that city from Berlin back in 2001. The teams had to rebook through Vienna to travel to Dubrovnik. Vienna is another beautiful city, just a short hop by plane, train or automobile from Prague I suspect. My visit to Vienna actually occurred way back in 1991 or 1992 when a co-worker and I drove there from Paris, France with several stops along the way. We were going to drive all the way to Budapest, Hungary but we were turned back at the border because my co-worker did not have the right dates in his visa paperwork. Fortunately, the conference we attended was in Vienna, so we did not get into trouble.

Anyway, it looks like Dubrovnik is another cool European city to visit. All the remaining teams saw a nice view as they drove to the harbor and rode a zip line from one turret to another in the fortress near the harbor.

I probably would have decided to do short / long instead of long /short because I do not know how well I would have rowed around the city walls.

TJ and Rachel were checking out the prize they had one in the previous leg. Looks like they will be staying at the New Otani in Tokyo. I stayed there way back in 1994. Luxurious hotel with a nice garden and convenient location (well my company has an office in Japan that is practically next door). Well I did almost mess up my back when I slipped in the bathtub. But that was the only one of two lowlights of a fun trip. I will save the other lowlight for a future blog entry if it ever enters my mind again.

Hopefully Hendekea has learned that knowing how to say, "There's a party in my pants" in Bosnian is not a huge advantage over other teams.

Next episode: Grandpa gets freaked out.

TV: Amazing Race 12: Ep 5

This was probably one of the more uneventful episodes of AR I can recall. However, one team went from almost worst to first and another team was eliminated after earning bad karma in the previous leg, so it was not a bad episode overall.

It seemed like most of the leg had the teams scrambling for flights from Burkina Faso in West Africa to Vilnius, Lithuania. I imagine it is not a popular flight route so the local travel agents had difficulty finding fast flights from Point A to Point B without having a couple of layovers perhaps.

Once in Lithuania, teams had to deliver messages to people in some old town square. I guess the beauty salon was hardest to find since it was a little bit tucked away. Anyway, it was very similar to the road block challenge from the last episode. Then a product placement opportunity arose when teams had to find a particular gnome used as a mascot for a travel web site in some farm land.

Finally, came the detour challenge. Counting posts or walking on stilts. Seeing people try to master the stilts was sort of funny but I know I would have had a very hard time of it myself. Counting never makes for exciting TV, but seeing some teammates get snippy with each other was mildly entertaining.

It was good to see the calm, quiet TK & Rachel win this leg.

I do not think the bus was very close to hitting the wannabe bombshells. But it did remind me of a scene from one of the few episodes I have seen of Life, where the main character's car was involved in a side collision.

I did have a chuckle when one of the contestants said they should do some research at an Internet "buffet."

Hopefully more action and tougher challenges are in store in the next leg.

TV: Amazing Race 12: Ep 1 and 4

As I stated in a previous blog entry, I lost a few episodes of this season's Amazing Race. I believe they were 2 and 3. This means I can comment only on 1 and 4 and hope I do not lose any others going forward.

The 12th Amazing Race started at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles. I guess it was as good a place as any to start since most of the teams were from Southern California. I did not pay close attention to see if most of the LA teams took the shortest route to the 405 freeway and LAX (a left according to Google Maps). I have been on that stretch of highway several times, though never because . I was kind of surprised the traffic was not worse.

The producers tried to bring some new types of couples to this race. Interestingly, there were no teams this season with two young guys. The only married couple were the lesbian ministers. There is a grandfather / grandson team this time around. The Goths might be interesting or annoying depending on my mood. The Miami sisters are the cutest but I already know they will not be around long.

The teams immediately have to find flights to Shannon, Ireland. Because a flight gets delayed the teams that were on an earlier flight out of LAX actually arrive later than the teams on a later flight. One gets to see how green Ireland is, but the Amazing Race is still not filmed in HD. Hopefully this will change in the future.

The restaurant worker team decides to steal a taxi reserved for another team. The bad karma they earn from that move bites them in the ass in the form of the most stubborn donkey on the planet. It did not help that they had no "donkey whispering" skills preferring to just yell and pull instead. Hence they came in last and were eliminated. Another couple who seem to have an unstable relationship also had trouble with their donkey, but eventually figured out how to push him/her down the path and arrived in second to last place.

The team that won this leg looks like they could be the toughest team in the competition. But if they are anything like my sister and me, they will be at each other's nerves after a few days together.

The only fun challenge in this race was biking along a high-wire with a teammate suspended below to help keep the bike balanced on the wire. I think there was another wire above for safety. With my discomfort with heights, I am not sure if I would want to be the one biking or the one hanging out on the bottom. At least the scenery might have been nice enough to make me live with the fear.

Fast forward to Episode 4 where the teams are in Africa. It appears we have lost the ministers and the sisters in the prior two episodes. Young kids seem to be everywhere and are usually helpful to all the teams. The teams have to temporarily adopt a chicken and one team names theirs Phil, which seems appropriate given Phil's hair style.

At the detour teams had to choose between dancing and gold panning. I would have chosen mining for a couple of reasons. One: I cannot dance. Two: With the price of gold rising, I would have mined a few extra ounces of gold and tucked it in my pocket. Given how easy it was for teams to find gold out in the open like that, I wonder how real the gold was and how much was actually placed there artificially. I had a similar experience in Alaska where the tour guides admitted that they had to add the gold into the mud. It was fun, but I am not even sure if I eventually misplaced the tiny gold flakes I found or gave them away to my relatives.

None of the judges in the Dancing competition came across as tough as Simon Cowell. But it was funny that one of the teams that incurred a 10-minute penalty for not being creative enough included a former L.A. Clippers cheerleader. That penalty could have cost them the win in this leg, where they lost in an exciting photo finish to the brother and sister team.

The team eliminated in this leg seemed like a nice couple. They fell victim to a U-Turn penalty used by the wannabe Blond Bombshells.

Africa is a continent I have yet to visit. I do want to see the pyramids of Egypt and/or some nature preserve (with nice accommodations since I have never slept inside a tent / sleeping bag -- It even took me a long time to remember the word for this -- Camping).

TMI: Blog Neglect

I guess it has been a while again since I have updated my blog. With a writer's strike pretty much ending any original (non-reality) programming on network television, one would think I would have few distractions from blogging. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case. It just takes a few.

Lately, I have been spending time reading other blogs that shall remain nameless. None of them are work remotely work-related. The topics are mainly about electronics and entertainment / gossip. That type of reading material may not help me get far ahead in what remaining life I have left, but at least I know Jessica Alba is pregnant and engaged. So for now, I can spend less time daydreaming about her at work.

I have also started dabbling in World of Warcraft again. I blame it on Mr. T and his Night Elf Mohawk ad. [Initially, I was going to blame William Shatner, but I hardly visit the web site he normally pitches.] I never got around to canceling my subscription. My old guild that I shall not name on a server I shall not name has pretty much disbanded since I last logged in. It took forever to build up a Level 44 Human Shadow Priest on a PvP server where I was going solo and getting "ganked" every day. But at least he was a rich priest even after buying a horse.

My new character is on a normal server that my brother plays on. Trying out a Blood Elf Paladin (with talent points going into Retribution for now). Kind of fun to level up more quickly and I do not have to play for more than an hour at a time at the low levels. I might get more attention-challenged when I have to run for 10 minutes to go from to quest -- or realize that I pretty much always use the same attack sequence on every bad guy that steps in my path. Otherwise, I might finally buy a game for my PS/3 instead of playing my old PS/2 ones -- Ratchet and Clank is about as much complexity as I can handle these days.

... and yes I will blog about the Amazing Race again.. soon I hope. Unfortunately, I lost a few of the early episode due to misprogramming my DVR. Each new episode was erasing the one before it. My weekends were busy with work related socializing so I did not even notice that for a while. I might have to visit the CBS website and a few other blogs to catch up on what has happened this season (or cycle or whatever it is called).

I have made no New Year's Resolutions for 2008. I decided being organized and healthy is something I need to somehow do all year long.

Stay tuned...

Web: A Parody of 24

I must be officially old when people start to reminisce about life and technologies in the 1990's as they do in this Engadget Blog Posting.

Spin the clock back another 15 or 20 years and now you have a television show with no cell phones, pagers, or even personal computers and it would be doubtful anything could be done in 24 hours. Roll the clock back just a bit more, and the show would be called, The Wild Wild West.

TV: Amazing Race: All-Stars - Finale

A very belated congratulations to Eric and Danielle for winning the Amazing Race and $1 million dollars after being "Yielded" twice, surviving an elimination penalty, and basically tolerating each other. The editors made their relationship look less stable than maybe it really is. I did not think they would survive so long in the race. In the end, Eric's memory of Danielle's opinions of the other teams may have made the difference. In other words, he did "listen to the woman."

The final challenge was a inventive one. Based an answers to questions about the other team, one team member generated a 4-digit code to lock the sort of safe you would see in a hotel. Then the other team member would enter the room and hope to arrive at the same answers to unlock the safe.

It was an interesting final leg. It did not look like the teams left 12 hours after they arrived like they normally do. It may have been more like 24 hours. The teams had to fly from Guam to Hawaii and for a while it looked like Charla and Mirna had once again found a better flight than other teams to gain a 20 minute lead. The first challenge did not seem very difficult or take long to do. The order did not change as each team finished as the next team arrived at that first challenge. The next challenge was a little more difficult as the teams had to paddle a kayak in rough waters to reach the next clue. [Memories of my second to last shoulder dislocation came haunted me when I saw the Beauty Queens capsize.] Charla and Mirna fell deep into last place and I thought it would spell the end for them.

However, the next clue told teams to go to San Francisco but they had to book flights into Oakland International Airport. The smaller number of flights to choose from allowed the teams to be tied again. This brought them to the final challenge mentioned above. The teams left for the final pit stop just a few minutes apart (1st were Eric and Danielle, then the Beauty Queens, and Charla and Mirna) but I guess the traffic in San Francisco and random taxi drivers did not allow for any lead changes.

Funny that last week I talked about flying from San Francisco to Manila via Hawaii and Guam. Travel has changed quite a bit since then. The teams had to go to Tokyo (Narita) first to get to Honolulu.

I have visited most of the Hawaiian Islands except for Lanai. Although I have lived practically my whole life in San Francisco, I have never been inside the Old Mint or the Botanical Gardens. I would still need Google Maps to figure out the fastest way between those two points as well. I only rode the cable cars for the first time a few years ago. But I guess it is typical for people to visit the tourist attractions closest to them last. I will be spending a bit more time in San Francisco next week for Oracle OpenWorld. Maybe I will hit a few more tourist spots then. Yosemite is still on my list of places to visit.

Next Episode: The First Leg of Season 12 and a chance to see some hopefully interesting brand new teams.

TV: Amazing Race: All-Stars - Ep 12?

This episode marked the end for Danny and Oswald. Not sure how they fell behind again after all the teams were bunched together in Guam. They must have gotten lost driving again. Despite the bunching, the Beauty Queens seemed to breeze through this leg from start to finish. It left very little tension in the race. The airlift and search and rescue exercise were highlights in this episode, and may have been the most unique aspect of this particular race. Granted I barely remember the episodes from seven months ago, so I don't remember what cool stuff they did before.

I actually spent a short amount of time in Guam when I was 3 or 4 years old. I flew back to the Philippines with my mother and perhaps some other relatives to attend my grandfather's funeral. I think my father stayed behind to watch my brothers and sister who did not miss school. Funny thing is I cannot remember if my sister was there too or not. Anyway back in 1970, that flight from San Francisco to Manila included changing planes in Hawaii and Guam. All I remember of those two stops was that it was raining, humid, and the plants were huge and green. Plus we always had to dash to get onto the plane -- either that or my mom just wanted to stay out of the rain. I thought it was called a runway because we had to run on it to reach the stairs into the plane.

My other memories of the flights back and forth was that it was a double-decker 747 and I snuck upstairs once or twice. The airline food was pretty bland (and unusual). Of course, I should save all the memories of that trip for a separate blog entry. And yes, I do remember several things that happened in my life even before I was 3 years old...

Next up is the final episode and a 67% chance that an all-female team wins the million dollars. The race is long over so I guess I should not even waste time predicting who the winner is. And believe or not none of my friends have ruined it for me all this time, and I avoided any web site that might spoil the outcome for me. That, in itself, is kind of amazing.

TV: Amazing Race: All-Stars - Ep 11?

In this leg with no airline flights involved, one would think a six-hour gap between first and last place would be safe. But Team Cha Cha Cha decided to do just about everything wrong.

1. Earn bad karma by dealing with the devil team disguised as blond beauty queens.
2. Never ditched their incompetent taxi driver (or at least a driver with communication issues)
3. Waited to long to ask for directions.

Once again it was a non-elimination leg, so the sins might be forgiven. And it was a tense leg for Eric and Daniele who had to overcome another Yield and a 30-minute penalty for not coming in first.

I didn't know Macau was so close to Hong Kong. I might have to stop by there next time I am in that part of the world. Of course the last time I was out there, Macau probably was only beginning to transform itself into the Asian version of Las Vegas.

The drop from the tower looks like fun, and the views looked spectacular. But I would have had a hard time doing the walk around the tower in the wind and rain. I wonder how much my knees would be wobbling up there.

If I ever train for the Amazing race, I will have to remember to learn stick shift. There has been much driving on the left side of the road this season. Unfortunately, there may not be many places to practice driving on the left inside the US. I think the Barney Oldfield ride in nearby Great America is the closest I can get to having the steering wheel on the right. But it is not stick and there's no crazy traffic.

Next episode: Danielle has a break down. Can't wait...

TV: Amazing Race: All-Stars: Ep 10?

Okay I took a six-month+ leave of absence from my blog for reasons I may or may not go into someday. On top of that I lost my notes for an episode (if not two) of the Amazing Race All-Stars. But since the new season starts tonight, I better post what few notes I do have.

This leg involved teams racing from Kuala Lumpur to Hong Kong. The order of finish was pretty much determined in the Kuala Lumpur airport as teams jostled for spots on various waiting lists. That order was influenced by two Amazing Race laws: "Maintain good karma" and "Listen to the woman." Team Cha Cha Cha being the nicest of the surviving teams managed to find the various airline offices at Kuala Lumpur airport first. This allowed them to be the first team on standby, survive a flipped over stunt car, and win a return trip to Hong Kong for Chinese New Years. By not listening to Danielle, Eric kept getting lost on the roads of Hong Kong and perhaps missed a chance to move up a spot with the help of another AR Law: "Know your directions otherwise ask." Fortunately, it was a non-elimination leg, so the pair do get to live to race another week.

Hong Kong is one of the cities I have actually visited. I was supposed to work there for six months but the whole exchange was canceled at the last minute. My manager did not want to lose a veteran for someone who had only been hired a few weeks earlier. Eventually, I did get to visit Hong Kong for a week for business reasons, but I spent most of my time at a customer site and never did get to see most of the places the teams went to -- Victoria Park and the Jockey Club. The apartment I would have lived in was in Happy Valley near the Jockey Club. I did take the subway to Kowloon, but did not feel like taking the ferry back.

Also I have changed flights in Hong Kong more times than I can remember. I think the last time was the day Great Britain handed over control of Hong Kong to China. Oh no, that was the second to last time as I went to Singapore. My return flight from Singapore also went through Hong Kong shortly after monsoon Dot had passed through, and experienced the scariest air pocket during takeoff. Sometimes when I see the airplane coming apart in "Lost", it reminds me of what when through my mind that day. But otherwise I try to forget that was my last trip through Hong Kong. I will still go back someday if only to check out the newer airport and all the construction that must have happened over the years.

The Kung Fu fighting detour looked like a bunch of fun. But I think I would have had more fun in the stunt car. How they set things up so that the car would flip back up on its wheels at the end was pretty cool.

The other detour was called Lost in Translation, but last I checked that movie took place in Tokyo. Teams were wise to avoid what sounded like a Needle in the Haystack challenge.

Mirna was quoted the episode title. And Charla on roller sneakers was kind of cute.

Next episode brings us some Yield drama. Back to my DVR I go.

TV: Amazing Race: All-Stars Ep 7 and 8

This episode turned out to be a two-parter. What started out as a gap of 16 hours or so between first and last place ended with the last few teams just a few minutes apart. However, a 30-minute penalty incurred at the end of a non-elimination leg resulted in Team Guido being Philiminated. Meanwhile, Team Cha Cha Cha decided to try to win some karma points by allowing Joyce and Uchenna to win a prize at the Pit Stop where the Teams finished in first together.

Episode 7 basically boiled down to who could find the best travel agent to book the earliest trip from Tanzania to Warsaw, Poland. That competition was won by the Beauty Queens who were patient with their agent while Mirna and Charla may have placed too much pressure on their agent by crowding in too closely. It would take 7 hours for their agent to find an alternative route to Poland. Joyce and Uchenna chose the wrong travel office, and it was funny that when they called another travel agency, it happened to be the one where all the other teams were sitting. The other teams convinced the agent to hang up on Uchenna abruptly. Eric and Danielle and The Guidos had to settle for using the original airline tickets provided at the beginning of the leg. Unfortunately, missing a connecting flight put them way behind the other teams. The tension between Eric and Danielle finally started to boil over.

Joyce and Uchenna had a chance to catch up with the Beauty Queens on a connecting flight through Frankfurt but I guess for a change they were not able to talk their way onto a plane. This allowed the Queens to cruise to victory in this leg with the Guidos somehow finishing last in a non-elimination leg and incur a 30-minute penalty if they did not finish first at the next Pit Stop.

The Guidos were so far behind that other teams had actually starteed the next leg before they finished. Fortunately, there were a couple of bunching points that allowed them to catch up to the other teams. The first was waiting for buses to take the teams to the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. The next was an Intersection that ultimately had members of four of the teams each eating a 2-foot long sausage. The whole eating contest was made for one of the most hilarious moments of the All-Star edition.

Eric and Danielle played it smart to just make sure they stayed close enough to Team Guido to the next Pit Stop, so they would not be eliminated. For a while it looked like there was a chance that Mirna and Charla would have had such a hard time getting directions from locals that they could have lost the race, but maybe their troubles were exaggerated or the distance to the Pit Stop was not very far at all.

I liked that the Race spent some time in Poland. I have yet to visit that country, but it is near the top of my list of places to go. Before a trip to Vienna, Austria in the early 90's, the mother of a good school friend loaned me a book by James A. Michener called Poland. It was excellently written, and made me really appreciate that part of the world, its history, and particularly the plight of the people of that country. [Unfortunately, I still have the book and never have gotten the chance to return it.]

The scenes at Auschwitz were particularly moving. On my airline flight, the day after viewing this episode on my DVR, I watched a touching movie called Freedom Writers. It also talked a bit about the Holocaust. Thirdly, Mirna and Charla discussed the Armenian genocide. Given some very current events around the world, it was interesting to compare how the world has for the most part gotten better -- though not by much.

I suppose the producers decided to relieve viewers from some heavy thoughts by having us see the teams struggle to eat giant sausages. I was laughing out loud when Mirna belched so loudly. Next, we witnessed Dustin suddenly throw up shortly after swallowing the last bite of her sausage. Then we had to watch Charla try to practice bulimia. That was sick but kind of humorous.

Other notes:
I wonder how long the poor guy playing Frederic Chopin had to stay in costume and sit in the misty weather waiting for the last few teams to arrive.

I never really learned how to play the piano though I had one in the house I grew up in. I did kind of learn Chopsticks and would watch how the piano tuner would work. So I know the little black spongy thing is used to do more than just clean the wire (according to Mirna). I have a decent ear for music notes but I likely would have made the same mistake as the Team Cha Cha Cha by snapping the piano string a couple of times.

I don't remember Charla falling down so often running to the Pit Stop the first time she ran the race. Fortunately, it does not look like she has gotten injured in those falls.

TV: Amazing Race: All-Stars Ep 6

This leg of the race was largely determined by luck in getting chosen off a waiting list for flights from Mozambique to Tanzania. The most dramatic moment was Eric and Danielle getting booted off a plane after they had already been seated. It was interesting that Eric had a premonition that something like that could happen. It also seemed a bit unfair given that they were the first team to get on the waiting list.

Once all the flights were sorted out, it was boiled down to a two team race to avoid elimination. Team Guido was much more methodical and solving a jigsaw puzzle, and they left Teri and Ian in the dust.

The race for first was kind of funny. Charla and Mirna started out with a huge lead going into Tanzania. Unfortunately "bad weather" held them back a night and allowed a few other teams to catch up. Team Cha Cha Cha had passed them at the puzzle challenge but then they made an odd decision to stop for fruit. The fruit may have been cheap to buy, but it also cost them the first place prize of a couple of catamarans. Hard to tell if they would have made more use of it than Charla and Mirna who looked confused about what they had won.

It would have been interesting to know how long it took for some of the teams to hit a target by throwing those sticks. I think in a couple of cases, contestants hit the pole holding the target instead of the target itself.

Next leg ... a two-hour special. Guess I will have to catch up with it on another evening.

TV: Amazing Race: All-Stars Ep 5

The key to this leg of the race was depending on the kindness of strangers. Charla and Mirna moved from last to first [as opposed to Romber who fell from first to last in the previous leg] by getting a local to give them directions around Maputo. They also were quick to find both men and women willing to pay to have their nails painted. Meanwhile, Joyce and Uchenna showed that nice guys can finish last and live to see another leg. I think they were saved by at least one non-elimination leg in the season where they ended up winning the race.

The teams were separated by as much as two or three hours at the start of the leg, but the first challenge and airline schedules caused a bunching situation as the teams raced to Africa.

It was good that the Amazing Race raised a tiny bit of awareness of a couple of problems being dealt with in Mozambique (and many other places around the world for that matter). The first is the high number of landmines buried during a civil war. It's encouraging to learn that trained rats could be used to sniff mines vs. using expensive anti-mine equipment. The second issue was the high rate of AIDS.

In lighter news, the Beauty Queens gained some karma points by taking time to paint the nails of a young girl who had no money. It may have helped them to a second place finish, but in general the task they chose was much easier and faster than filling large bags of charcoal. It helped Teri and Ian finish third.

It was also funny watching Phil avoid a hug from the coal laden Team Cha Cha Cha. That is probably the most we have ever seen him move in the history of this show. It would have been interesting to see how the Miners (David and Mary) would have done in that task.

TV: Amazing Race: All-Stars Ep 4

I'll have to post some very quick recaps of the last few episodes as I've fallen way behind in my TV viewing. Perhaps it has just taken me this long to get over the shock of this episode.

On this leg, the Karma police decided to strike down Team Romber pretty early instead of making Rob feel the huge disappointment of losing on the very last leg. I was hoping that when Rob and Amber were married, that maybe Rob would become a nicer guy in these reality shows. Instead it was Amber who became a little more deceitful, and that was a shame.

Ultimately, it was a spelling error (Phillipeans?) at a Detour that cost Romber the race. Coincidentally, Ferdinand Magellan himself never did make it around the world. He was killed in battle in the Philippines (correct spellig), and only 18 members of his crew completed the first known circumnavigation of the Earth. Much to the slight disappointment of my parents, that is about all I know about Filipino history.

I thought there might be a chance for Romber to save themselves at the mail sorting task, since that is a typical "needle in a haystack" type challenge where luck can play a bigger role than skill. But Rob seemed to be conceding defeat at that point.

The only other bit of trivia we got to learn this week was that Kandace snores pretty loudly.

Not as surprising, more commentary from Eric is interested in Danielle mostly because of her ample boobs. That does not bode well for a long-term relationship.

TV: Amazing Race: All-Stars Ep 3

This week marked the end of the race for the beloved Kentucky miners. All through this leg of the race I kept hoping the karmic police would step in and punish Charla and Mirna for trying to cut in line. Their panic can also be a bit annoying but that does not impact Karma points. Fortunately, they gained some points for inadvertently helping the hopelessly lost Team Guido. The miners somehow missed an exit on their way to a clue, but it was not really clear how far it had put them behind all the other teams.

We learned a few interesting though not very surprising tidbits about the teams this week:

- Danielle and David have never touched live fish before. But David managed to learn how to handle them faster, while Danielle somehow overcame her discomforts with them eventually. But it cost her team a bunch of time.

- Team Cha Cha Cha needs to do much more cardio work. Granted I do too, so I cannot really make fun of them.

- The Beauty Queens are in really good shape at physical tasks, and they have not gone into a panic. Now they just need to pay much more attention to directions and clues. Otherwise they may not last longer. They were incredibly fortunate not to lose any ground in skipping a clue.

- Amber seems to do most of the Road Blocks. I guess Rob does most of the plotting. But since all the other teams know the game, it may not be much of an advantage this time around. Following signs carefully did allow them to pass other teams at the end and finish first for the 3rd week in a row. However, taking a brief wrong turn early in the leg did show they are not perfect.

- I guess we now know from comments at the fish challenge why Eric is dating Danielle, but that was not too hard to guess. If I put the word he used a lot in my blog I might start getting some interesting hits from people searching for that word. So I won't.

Every team chose the rafting detour instead of a rock climb. Well the Queens did the rafting by accident. I wonder if the 40-foot climb would have been faster considering the time needed to drive to the rafts, get changed, raft, and catch a shuttle back to the cars. Teri was remarkably calm for someone who fell into the rapids. I wonder how quickly the guides were able to pull her back into the boat. The river rafting would have been frightening for me - a dislocated shoulder waiting to happen. The closest experience I have to that is riding the Rip Roaring Rapids at Great America. I vaguely recall that ride had a category associated with it but I cannot find that information anywhere right now. But people are restrained securely to a tall seat within a big rubber tire on that ride, and there are no sharp rocks to worry about.

Mirna spoke the title of the episode this week, but I have not been keeping track of this as much as last season where Mary spoke some classic lines.

Next week the teams may finally make their way out of Chile, with a finish that is sure to shock people.