Kind of continuing the Portland sucks theme but not really.  

I've got a tooth that is killing me.  Not literally for sure but it's been hurting really bad since a couple of days before thanksgiving.  I'll be the first to say that I haven't taken good care of my teeth over the years and that I'm paying for it now.  But I would like to pay for it with money and just having to live with high grade ore and ceramic in my mouth.  The Dentists seem hell bent on making me pay in all of the above plus days, nay weeks of additional pain and suffering.  

Back home in Denver if something in my mouth was hurting I would call up and make an appointment with my dentist and a day or so later I could go in and no matter what the problem I would leave with my problem fixed.  Never did I have to make an appointment, get poked at and then told I would have to make another appointment for the following week to get the pain to stop!  And then sent away still in pain!!  This has happened twice...

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It's over and tomorrow it's back to the grind stone.  I've got a little way through porting my RTSP tool over to VS .Net 2005 and adding some features.  I'm holding off on the Java version for sometime. 

Still looking for a job in Denver or around there.  Doesn't anyone need a System Engineer in Denver?  There has got to be something there.  :) 

My boss is selling his Cessna.  It's' a 1963 model but they don't really change that much and he has good radios in it.  The Cessna also has a brand new engine in it with just a little over 200 hours on it.  If I could figure out a way to buy it I just might do it.  Seeing as how it looks like I'll be stuck at sea level for the forseeable future it's being only 160 HP shouldn't make that much difference and it'll give me something to stay current in at least.

Not a whole lot planned for today.  I've got a little app that I've been wanting to write using the new VB .Net 2005 stuff.  I think I'll probably start porting over some of the RTSP test app code to Java and VB .Net 2005.  Although they are pretty much the same thing now days.  I took some of the code I had written for my RTSP tester and compiled it into java just be running it through Netbeans. Kind of weird.  :)

Guido, A guy I work with has turned me on to something called RealBasic. From the little I've played with it it seems very cool!  It has the syntacs of VB but it's native compiled code that you can compile for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.  Pretty sweet!  It even comes with a code converter so I can take everything I have now and port it right to Linux. 

My friends next door have invited me over for Thanksgiving dinner.  So it doesn't look like I'll have to starve or eat cold pizza this year.  :)  Thanks Phong and Melissa.

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My friend Curtis who Runs www.knick-knack.com and created the hydrostacker site was one of the many people who sent me a link for the Nike Jet. 

He was or is one of the lucky ones that has moved back to Denver.  He also takes a LOT of pictures and has a few pretty amazing ones posted on his site.  I encourge you to check it out.

This one almost made me feel bad after my last post.  It would have been horrible to see such a nice airplane all torn up on the runway.

One of Nikes Gulfstreams was on it's way to Toronto with a hand full of execs and some regular employees when it was noticed that the right landing gear wouldn't retract fully.  Not generally a bad thing just a little expensive to land your General aviation Jet wheels up.  Fox news here in Portland has some good video of the Gulfstream 500 doing a fly by and then landing 5 hours later after circling around the area burning off fuel.

One good thing came out of it all.  Fox news channel 12 around here finally got to actually take off for awhile.  Normaly (it being Oregon) the traffic guy just sits in it doing his traffic reports.  They hardly ever actually fly the poor helicopter around, even when the weather is nice.

Pretty slow actually.  Portland seems to be pretty much how I like things without the snow.  Nice and cold with lots of sunshine.  I'm holding out hope that there will be a really cold night and then a thunder storm the next morning.  I could go for a good ice storm.  ;) One interesting thing that makes my life just a little bit more miserable is now open right on the way I take to go to work.  The only way there from where I live I might add.  The worlds largest Costco just opened up a block East of the airport.  Of course they needed a traffic light and a new intersection since a traffic light on every block is obvoiusly not enough.  So in the space of 200 feet or so there are three traffic lights.  Not bad really if they were timed to each other but they are not.  The Traffic light farthest to the East is what I call a "Thanks for building your factory in our city" light.  Meaning it turns red any time a car wants to get into or out of the Intel car park.  None of the other lights compensate...

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I was in the Army for the first go around with Iraq, the one where we had a least a little bit of a reason to be there and where the Generals could get the President to stop where he should have. Although we should have taken out Saddam at that time.

There were a lot of us worried about how we would be treated when we got home and out of the Military.  It was great to find out that these last two wars that the normal Military person is being treated with respect and not having to hold the blame.

Check out one Mother of a Marines blog.  It's pretty interesting if you are of a mind. 

In keeping with my new theme of posting at least one thing that it wrong with the Portland area until I get home to Denver, here is todays entry.

When I first started having to come out here for work, (My company is headquartered in Beaverton, OR) it was raining hard and non-stop.  The news channels were running stories about the flooding of local creeks and people getting washed away.  The very next stories were about how bad the drought was!! and water rationing for the next summer.  This is after two solid weeks of raining.

Last night on my way home from work I was listening to NPR weather on OPB they mentioned strong winds coming out of the columbia gorge over night and today.  The very next bit was something I've never heard of before and stagnate air advisory!  I'm a pilot I know weather pretty well, I've read all sorts of forcasts and I've never heard of something like that before. Especially with high wind advisories in the same area.  The gorge is like a big funnel pointing right at Portland.  While I was changing the channel I was nearly sideswiped by an old lady talking on her cell phone.

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Here's something a little different. iDoom.  This is the classic first person shooter Doom ported to the iPod running iPodLinux.   I'm not sure why anyone would want to do that.  It would be just about unplayable and take up space that could be filled with mp3s but to each his own I guess.

And yes I broke down and bought an iPod Nano 4GB in black.  :)  I love it and it's great for PODCASTS which I'm becoming addicted to. 

People ask me all the time how I like Oregon.  Generally it sucks 9 months of the year, one month isn't too bad,  and the other two are pretty alright.  But I need a more poetic way to say it.  Then I run across this quote which will be my e-mail tag until I get out of this place.

"It isn't as if there is anything very wonderful about my little corner. Of course for people who like cold, wet, ugly bits... its something rather special." --Eeyore