Sunday, December 30, 2007

Dana Point Harbor

Dana Point Harbor: 33°27'30.90"N 117°41'50.76"W

Dana Point Harbor is a very neat and long harbor (1.5 miles according to the website). It was fun to walk around and take pictures of the yachts, boats, people kayaking and (something completely new to me) stand-up surfboard paddling. The harbor also has a nice shopping center and several places to eat. Well worth the visit.
Dana Point Website...
Some photos on my Flickr page...
Stand-Up surfboard paddling...

Friday, December 28, 2007

Wind and Sea Restaurant at Dana Point - 1 star

Dana Point Harbor is a wonderful place (see the next post) with great shops, restaurants, and nice views. While there, we decided to visit one of these restaurants for lunch.

First off the Wind & Sea restaurant has fantastic views of the harbor. We were seated by the window and had a nice time watching the boats, and people pass by. Second the atmosphere of the restaurant is pleasant and upscale. and the day we went was not crowded at all.

Now for the bad. When visiting an upscale restaurant you expect to pay heavily... for that, people expect good service and good food. Nether existed here.
  • Food was undercooked, and the shrip did not smell or taste right.
  • We asked to have our food cooked correctly, however our server never apologized for this error, or bothered to stick around to make sure we were satisfied with the results (now way over cooked).
  • The service (with Kevin) was horrible, with our waiter not bothering to check in on us until we literally ask for him.
  • Refills had to be asked for, not provided automatically as you would expect from a fine end (and high dollar) restaurant.
  • Finally at the very end of the meal, we were finally asked how the food was (too little, too late). When I told him, he said nothing, but just took the plates and returned with the full bill. No apology, no discount, no manager.
Wait staff do work hard, and deserve to be tipped will for this work, however good service begets a good tip. Poor service begits not just a poor tip, but a poor public review.

I'm sure that if I lived in Southern CA I could revisit the place later on to make sure it was not just a one time event... however since I was a visitor, this review will have to stand. If you have had good or bad service, just reply to this post.

Christmas Day at Huntington Beach Pier

My wife and I went out to LA to visit my brother over the Christmas holiday. Everyday was in high 60's to low 70's. It was a wonderful treat for someone from Kansas City.

On Christmas day, we went over to the pier at Huntington Beach. Many people also had the same idea, so it was a great time watching them, the surfers, the beach performers, the volleyball players, and all the other activity that occurs along the pier. You can see a few photos of the pier over at my FLICKR page.

Note that at the very end of the pier is a neat 50's style diner called Ruby's. This is a place well worth the trip. They have good food and service, and a fantastic view of the ocean.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Find those duplicate files


Find all those duplicate files that are eating up your harddrive space with Easy Duplicate Finder.
  • EDF is a free program
  • You can install it or use the standalone EXE version (which makes it a great USB drive software app)
  • A very fast program which tore through a 10 gig folder in less than half a minute.
  • It is flexible so that you can automatically delete files (to the recycle bin), or manually pick those you wish to delete. It also can overlook system files (meaning no worry)
  • .... and a nice easy user interface.

The earbud clip



Yet another great way to keep earpud cables from tangling.

Keep headphone wires from getting tangled

I'm a convert. After years of stuffing headphone cables into my pocket, only to have to untangle them later on, I stumbled across this link from Lifehacker. It works! I'm amazed!


  1. With your right hand make devil horns (third and fourth fingers tucked, second and fifth extended)
  2. Use your middle fingers to hold the earbuds against your palm
  3. Wrap the cable around your 2nd and 5th fingers using a figure-8. This is really the key part, the cris-crossing prevents it from knotting
  4. When you have 6 to 8 inches of cable left, wrap the remaining cable around the center of the figure-8 a few times and tuck the end into one of the loops.


Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Man vs Wild or Mild

For those of you who don't know, Bear Grylls has a show on the Discover Channel. Bear is dropped off somewhere with only a camera crew. He has to make it out of the wilderness and to safety. This was supost to be a true telling of his survival skills and talent. However it has leaked out that none of it is real. Preplanned, prepackaged, and zero survival. When this occurred Discovery Channel backtracked and now has a disclaimer on the front of each show. (click on image for larger view)

So basically.... Bear pretends to be Survivorman (Les Stroud) without any risk. Move along folks... it's just acting folks. Nice try. I'm sorry but this is just lame of the Discovery channel to pretend its all for real, and continue to promote it that way, except for the disclaimer. Very FOX of Discovery.

Click the video to see the fakeout. Go to YouTube for more.


Saturday, December 1, 2007

http://www.embedtube.com/uploads/33101407Realage.swf