How to twist my arm...

Step 1) Call me when I'm neck deep in snow and my back is breaking from shoveling, and tell me that its nice and warm and sunny where you are...

Step 2) Tell me you have a huge problem...

Step 3) The problem involves getting your super fancy 52-foot sportsfishing boat the 650 miles from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to Miama, Florida just as fast as you can get it there - and then take another boat 200 more miles on to Key West and then a few days later, bring them both back again!

Step 4) Tell me you need someone to basically navigate using a state of the art moving map GPS system, stow gear, tie lines, check life jackets, put stuff in the microwave now and then, and set up some 300+ sailfishing rigs...

Step 5) Tell me you won't pay anything but airfare both ways, but I get room and "board" on-board a boat that makes my house look like a mongolian yurt...

----------------------A friend of my Dad's best fishing buddy has a boat that the owner uses for billfishing (marlin, sailfish, swordfish) tournaments and unexpectantly lost the services of his deckhand and a whole bunch of phone calls later...

...I found myself hurrying to the airport my aching back "sort of" forgotten - I had a boat to catch. In my rush, I forgot to bring a whole bunch of stuff including my camera - but my cellphone camera worked pretty good, except in the dark.


It was dark when I got there and it was quite dark when we left the dock not long afterwards.


Not that I cared since I was tending things below decks - I wish my house was as nice!


I only got to look at this bed, I slept on the convertible sofa in the "living room".

A very long night and half a day later, I helped navigate the boat through the inlet into Pompano Beach, Florida where I was kicked off the "tournament" boat and onto another boat to wash it down, stow in food, and prepare it for a trip to the Bahamas. This boat was the owner's "little boat" (it was "only" 47 feet long), and no, I wasn't invited to go on that ride - the boat owner and the boat captain were going there after the billfishing tournament was over.

The Pompano Beach, Florida Billfishing tournament lasted 4 days, of which I saw absolutely nothing except the boat I helped bring down from Myrtle Beach come back into the dock last day (February 21, 2010).


While the tournament got organized to start, and after getting the second boat set for a relatively short 90-mile voyage to Freeport, Bahamas, I went with the Owner's son in his boat down toward Key West, Florida. The son wanted to scout out the annual World Sailfish Championship "grounds" (waters?) being held on April 13-17, 2010. Last year, there were $1,013,000 in prizes.


I got to go ashore and sit on the beach for a few days while the son drove the boat all over the deep blue sea. I enjoyed the quiet, the warmth, and the fact that the ground wasn't heaving underfoot at all hours of the day.

...but then... I got a hankering to go fishing... so I caught up with another friend of my dad's, Captain Jeff of the Tarpon Time.


It's really uncanny how Captain Jeff manages to "park" the boat over the fish. I had a fish on within 3 seconds of putting the bait into the water. I think we caught about 50 fish this day (we released all but 4 of them) including Cerro Mackerel, Yellowtails (Jacks), Mangrove and Orange Snapper, a 'Cuda, Amberjack, and black, red and nassau Groupers. The largest one I caught, a red Grouper is pictured - I think it was about half mouth!


I kept only what I was going to eat. Ah, fresh fish, there isn't anything like it. If you think you don't like fish, you have never had it fresh enough - as in caught an hour ago!

The boat that won the Pompano Beach tournament, the Owl's Nest, got a check for $122,625.00! The boat I helped bring to the tournament won enough to pay it's (and my) way even though it got about one (1!) mile to the gallon of diesel fuel.

I'm so far behind with things - I might never catch up - and its snowing here once more with another foot snow forecast tonight and into tomorrow.

Why did I come back?

:)

Out of Order

I'm going to be "out of order" for awhile. I'll be back after a break.

My Sexual Fantasy

Recently, Dorkys Ramos, over at Dry As Toast had an intriguing post on "Tips for Sharing Your Sexual Fantasies."


That's my car under that lump of snow. I think we got about 16-18 inches of new snow. Now, being snowed in gives me time to fantasize. Of course, as some of you know, I struggle mightily to keep this blog rated PG, so this will be a little ... different.

Without further ado, here you go, Dorkys! :)

A big glamorous motor coach pulls down the street and silently glides to a stop by the curb near my mailbox. The door opens and a beautiful blonde woman steps out followed by about fifteen strapping, muscular guys with snow shovels. The guys quickly get to work and soon clear a narrow path through the deep snow to my front door – where the blonde rings my door bell. I open the door to see Heather Locklear smiling at me and asking if she might come in.

I stammer and gulp, and nod my head affirmative, and she strides in closing the door behind her while sensuously unzipping her arctic parka to reveal a lacy white nightie. She softly whispers into my ear, “I’m yours, do what you want with me.” I stare at her, absorbing her loveliness, inhaling her sweet scent, and run my fingers through her silky hair. I suggest a small glass of wine and she agrees, so I go to the kitchen and fumble about with the bottle and corkscrew.

It takes my trembling fingers five minutes to get the cork out of the wine bottle, and then I need to wash, rinse and dry the glasses as they haven’t used in to long as to be covered in a thick coat of dust. Finally, the bottle and glasses are ready and I take them to bedroom where Heather waits impatiently. She smiles up at me from the bed as I pour the wine. I nervously hand her a glass and make a quick toast, “Salute!” and we sip the bargain basement special that cost less than seven dollars a bottle. I think I see her wince but she quickly covers it with a brilliant smile that melts everything inside me.

Just then, there is a loud knock on the door, the fifteen strapping muscular guys have finished shoveling my driveway and its time for Heather to leave – so she quickly dons her arctic parka, the fur-lined hood framing her beautiful face, and she says, “Good bye, Iggy,” as she enters the motor coach and it speeds away trailing a small cloud of diesel smoke.

I sigh in satiated pleasure, my driveway is clear of snow.

I'm not going to talk about snow...

...hoping it will just go away.



Today, I was reading an article in the January/February 2010 issue of Speech Technology, titled ‘Text-To-Speech’ by Caroline Henton.

The article was about a test used for evaluating the latest text-to-speech (known as TTS) products.

I’m interested in the technology for several reasons; one being my friend Tori_Z uses it to “read” blogs and other web pages. Another reason is my younger brother’s PhD (in Computer Science) thesis was about using computers to parse human language – or machine language recognition – his work dealt with making a computer understand someone, anyone, that spoke to it with an emphasis on the ums, likes, you knows, ahs, and errs and backtracking that people do when they speak naturally.

As I read the article I was struck by how difficult the test was – it consisted of 10 utterances to test TTS performance in pronunciation accuracy, text normalization, pausing, and other aspects of prosody.

Here are the ten utterances – how well can you read and pronounce these phrases? And Tori? I hope your blog reading program doesn’t choke to badly here!

1) McCain called Obama a liberal, and then he insulted him.
2) Jenny gave Peter instructions to follow.
3) I want doors I can shut!
4) Was the red book read or do we have to read it?
5) Bring me a blue towel, and a red one.
6) Cumin, fenugreek, bouillabaisse, rouille, riesling.
7) 124th Avenue, 120 4th Avenue, 100 24th Avenue.
8) Suisun City, Poughkeepsie, Coeur d’Alene, Streatham, Guildford.
9) Barrasso, Boustany, Faleomavaega, Grijalva, Kratovil, Radanovich, Sebelius.
10) Ralph Vaughn Williams, Ralph Fiennes, Nicolas Sarkozy, Nicholas Nickleby, Maria Callas, Black Maria.

I found numbers 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 to be near tongue twisters. Apparently, number 9 is a partial list of current members of Congress. Four vendors submitted their products for evaluation and they actually preformed rather well. I’m amazed by how fast the technology is improving.

The article closed with:

“For future progress in speech synthesis, more attention to general purpose TTS (and less to, say, in-vehicle navigation) and the semantic disambiguation of homographs (read/read; Maria/Maria) would be universally beneficial.”

Uh huh, I umm... yeah... like, I agree with that, for sure.

:)

Expecting Armageddon

Last night I went to the grocery store to get some soap - if you care to know, it was some of that blue-colored Coast deodorant soap - since I swore off Ivory soap many years ago - and I encountered a frenzied mob buying milk and bread, pushing and shoving and long lines at the cash registers.

Not wanting to wait in line for hours - heck, I can bearly wait for minutes - I left the soap where I found it and went home.


From WeatherUnderground.com:

Winter Storm Warning in effect from 6 PM this evening to 7 PM EST Saturday.

Friday

Cloudy. Snow likely with a chance of rain this afternoon. Little or no snow accumulation. Highs in the mid 30s. Light and variable winds becoming west around 5 mph this afternoon. Chance of precipitation 70 percent.

Tonight

Snow. Snow accumulation of 3 to 5 inches. Brisk with lows in the lower 20s. Northeast winds 15 to 20 mph. Chance of snow near 100 percent.

Saturday

Snow. Total snow accumulation of 8 to 12 inches. Brisk with highs in the upper 20s. North winds 15 to 20 mph with gusts up to 30 mph. Chance of snow near 100 percent.

Saturday Night

Partly cloudy with a chance of snow showers in the evening, then mostly clear after midnight. Lows around 16. Northwest winds 10 to 15 mph. Chance of snow 40 percent.

And from Weather.com:

Heavy 2-to-locally-4-inch rain stretching from northern Florida into Tidewater Virginia will result in spotty flooding.

But the main event with this storm will be heavy snow in the Mid-Atlantic States. Snow will begin in the Washington area this afternoon and spread northward towards Philadelphia by evening.

Heavy snow will continue into Saturday before winding down by evening. Travel may grind to a halt for a time, especially overnight and Saturday.

By the time the storm ends, many areas in northern Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and southern Pennsylvania will have over a foot of snow. Some places may end up nearly two feet of snow from this storm.

That ought to make a certain snow bunny in Virginia happy, but if you hear whimpering (or smell someone really ripe and in need of a shower), it's coming from me near Philadelphia.

The Spirit of Transportation

Last Friday, my Mom mentioned to me that my dad was restless and wanted to take a train ride - I think he finds the clickety-clack of the train over the rails somehow both, hypnotizing and comforting - Mom also seemed to be a little desirous of some peace and quiet. I think things have gotten back to where they were before my Dad's recent heart attack.

And of course, I'm always up for a train ride to I visited Amtrak's website and mapped out a "quick" trip from Philadelphia to Harrisburg and back.


The train left Philadelphia's 30th Street Station around 1 PM and got back around 5 PM, speeding over roughly 200 miles round trip. My dad and I really enjoyed the train ride - It sped through Lancaster County where the view consists largely of Amish farms, complete with laundry hanging in the snow flurries.

While waiting for my dad to appear at the train station, I wandered about and this caught my eye.


Terra-cotta plaque “Spirit of Transportation” by Karl Bitter
When I got a chance, I looked up some details.

Karl Theodore Francis Bitter (December 6, 1867 in Vienna – April 9, 1915) was an Austrian-born United States sculptor best known for his architectural sculpture, memorials and residential work.

Although Bitter arose out of the Classical/Naturalist styles he was increasingly turning towards a more modern approach to sculpture. Much of the work he did in Buffalo and St. Louis was allegorical in nature.

Where this change of art-form would have taken him will never be known, because he was killed in a tragic accident in 1915 when, while leaving the opera in NYC, a car jumped the curb and struck him down.

Created in 1895, this plaque was originally installed at the Pennsylvania Railroad's Philadelphia Broad Street Station and was moved to the waiting area of 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in January 1933.

It depicts the evolution of transportation as a triumphal procession. “Transportation” herself is riding in a canopied chariot in the middle.


I was mildly amused by the little boy (who appears to have a very old man's head) at the far right holding up a dirigible, that is a "lighter-than-air aircraft", which is to represent the "future" of transportation coming after the steam-powered riverboat and steam locomotive train.

Whiter than White!

A good friend of mine, Deanna (I call her Punkn), has been writing a weekly post called "Will I Ever Learn Wednesday" and this week does not disappoint.

For some reason today's post resurfaced in my mind something that happened a long time ago, back in the dark days before Blogger and the possibly even the Al Gore-created Internet.

I was working for a pharmaceutical company called Smithkline And French, that went through a myriad of mergers first with Beckman, and then with Beecham and then GlaxoWellcome. The company is now known as GlaxoSmithKline.

I worked with a bunch of people that did clinical data management - and worked on a state of the art, "mainframe" computer with dumb terminals - Yes, Bucky, I'm that old. They did have e-mail back then - however it only went to people within the company.

Once a week, on Friday, I would send my data-minded, statistically-bent colleagues a little "interdepartmental" blurb that would today, be recognized as a blog entry. I covered any subject that left me thinking "why is that?" or "isn't that odd?" I called it "Friday's Ponderables".

And so it was on one Friday morning, I rushed to work and frantically typed a long-winded, agonized lament about Ivory Soap.


I can remember looking at a fresh bar of Ivory Soap while standing in the shower earlier that morning thinking, "Hmmm, 99 and 44/100 pure? What IS the other stuff? The impure stuff???!? Do I really want to be slathering it all over my body?"

So I wrote in that e-mail that went to about 75 people, all of which were brilliant, many were Ph.D's in biology, biostatistics or computer science, asking, "What, exactly IS the other 66/100th in Ivory Soap?!?"

Imagine my mortification, when a short while after sending that e-mail, which speculated nearly endlessly about just what the "impure stuff" was, I got a reply from my boss with the subject of "Iggy likes things Whiter than White!" that he had send to everyone that got the original e-mail.

He went on to say, "Not only does Iggy overachieve while working on the stickiest of your data-related problems, he likes things whiter than white! Brighter than bright! Newer than new! He, perhaps overreached things with his latest 'Friday's Ponderables" when he was looking for something a bit extra! Being 99 and 44/100th pure means that there is 56/100th (and not 66/100th) of something else in their soap. But we will forgive him, because his heart's in the right place and he is 99 and 44/100th pure (simpleton) himself."

I think about that time, I started to think, perhaps, maybe, it was time to find a new job somewhere else...