New DH biking ramps in Seattle

Went biking with a co-worker this past weekend out near Tiger Mt... We went to a few trails he had helped build (some really nice DH jumps). I couldn't ride them on my XC bike, but I could see myself buying a DH bike in the near future...

Watched Full Metal Jacket this past weekend as well... So many good quotes...

Random question: What the heck is "Semper Fi"?
Well, you see it on bumper stickers all the time around these parts. Basically it's short for Semper Fidelis (latin traslating to "always faithful"). The reason it's on bumper stickers is because it's the motto for the US Marine Corps.

Our new v-ball league is much more difficult for us. We're not going to go 50-0 this time.

Maybe Whistler this weekend?? Hmm.. They just had 20cm of new snow. But I kinda want to bike.

Close captioning...

Question: How does close captioning work for live TV?

Had this question come up this weekend because we were watching the world hockey tourney with close captioning (Canada won Silver). Is there speech recognition sofware behind this, is it some person madly typing, or is TV on some sort of delay so people can correct spelling mistakes? I bet that there was no way speech recognition software was good enough, so there had to be people madly typing on the other end.

Apparently I was right (for once). So here's the explanation of how real time captions are generated. Basically you have a bunch of stenocaptioners (people with special typewriters) writing at 250 words per minute as the backend to this system.

What has been going on?

Went to a Moby concert Wednesday. I was a bit unsure of how it would go since his music is pretty laid back, but they actually had pretty good stage presence. Highlights included a 35 second metal solo, a harmonica solo, a skynard song and a song inspired by David Bowe.

My car was egged last week while it was parked overnight. Egg is a real pain to get off your vehicle.

My volleyball league over in Ingrahm HS is going well, we moved up to the upper category and are still winning most of the time, so we're doing fine.

My passport finally came in, so now I am free to move about the country without worrying about being deported.

Was playing with these various maps games:
US Map Games
Other Countries

My knowledge of Asia is apparently much worse than I originally thought.