Posts Tagged ‘observation’

Super cool pens (maybe it’s the super ink)

laelene Posted in photo blog,Tags: , , ,
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uniball 207 pens, designed to prevent check fraud

I'm a sucker for a set of pens with something unique. Like special ink for preventing check fraud, for instance.

frank abagnale, secure document consultant, gives his stamp of approval for the uniball 207 pens

Approved by Frank Abagnale, former con artist and pro at check fraud. Now consultant against such things! (If you ever saw Catch Me If You Can, this is the guy the movie's about.)

What time is it again?

laelene Posted in general blog,Tags: , ,
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Oh Daylight Savings, how you confuse me.  All this talk of falling back and springing forward makes sense until I try to figure out if the sun will be setting earlier or later in the day now.  By all intuition, it should be later since it gets dark pretty early now.  Yet, according to all logic the opposite will happen.  So why does it happen?!  It doesn’t make sense to get up and have the sun even higher than it was before, then leave work only after the sun has set and not during the setting.  You’d think they’d fix the time so that we get up as the sky is lightening and leave work when it’s still light out.  I’m baffled.

But hey, at least I get an extra hour to work with!

Airports

laelene Posted in video blog,Tags: , , , , ,
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Well, my mom missed a connecting flight today, so I decided to share some videos from when I was sitting around at an airport in Thailand…

First, the retracting of the bridge when all the passengers are loaded:

retracting jet bridge from Mary Qin on Vimeo.

The plane, unable to back up itself, gets pushed by a pushback tractor (I believe that’s the correct term).

pushback tractor working its magic from Mary Qin on Vimeo.

The next plane comes along and the bridge slowly seals itself against the side.

jet bridge meeting plane from Mary Qin on Vimeo.

Our luggage is loaded and soon we get to boarding to start the process all over again, for anyone still sitting there to watch.

luggage loading from Mary Qin on Vimeo.

The power of many

laelene Posted in video blog,Tags: , , , ,
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When it’s one, it looks a little insane, no?

bird dust bath from Mary Qin on Vimeo.

Ah, but when it’s many, it’s a party!

birds dust-bathing from Mary Qin on Vimeo.

I never knew that birds took dust baths. I thought that was just something chinchillas did.

Hungry fellow

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squirrel eating from Mary Qin on Vimeo.

This squirrel wasted no time gobbling up his food.

In honor

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policeman stopping traffic

It all started when two cops on bikes, sirens blaring, stopped right in the middle of the road and held us there.

cops on motorcycles exiting cargo area near LAX

And then the cops began the procession of at least 4-5 dozen vehicles. As you can see Korean Air cargo is back there, as are some other Asian airlines.

hearse carrying body of SSgt Joshua Cullins of the USMC & LAPD

At the official beginning of the procession (cops on bikes in front notwithstanding - they were just there to clear the way) was a hearse. I later learned that this carried a soldier, Staff Sergeant Joshua Cullins of the USMC and an officer of the LAPD.

And so it was that I came upon this solemn event that left me shaken, for after the hearse came a slew of sheriff’s vehicles, bomb squad vehicles (from both the FBI and sheriff’s department), some civilian vehicles with Marines inside, and so many more cops on bikes.  It was an eerie event that left me wondering if there had been a bomb at LAX, but then I figured the funeral procession wouldn’t be ready so quickly.

All throughout lunch I tried to find out what that was, but it wasn’t until I got back to the office that I was able to find some articles about SSgt Cullins, who had served in Afghanistan and was recently killed by a bomb.  He was a Marine reservist as well as an LAPD officer and he was on the cusp of joining the bomb squad, hence the three types of vehicles that were a part of the parade of respect.

Out of all the branches of the military, I respect the Marine Corps the most.  They’re the ones in the trenches much of the time, fighting the dirty battle.  So oo-rah to this young Marine and police officer who contributed so much.  May the troops still out there stay as safe as possible.

Here are some of the articles my friends and I found:

http://www.daylife.com/photo/04RkaGUa8S7aS?q=Los+Angeles+International+Airport

http://67.59.172.92/article/Local_News/Local_News/Body_of_LAPD_officer_killed_in_Afghanistan_has_arrived_in_LA/72241

http://www.facebook.com/notes/military-wall-of-honor/ssgt-joshua-j-cullins-28-of-simi-valley-ca-was-killed-monday-in-afghanistan-he-w/10150282796400244

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cullins-20101020,0,2239541.story

Tiger “baby”

laelene Posted in video blog,Tags: , , , ,
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At the Tiger Temple in Thailand, caretakers fed and cooled down the felines by squirting water or milk from a baby bottle into their mouths. Kind of a funny thing, a huge grown tiger being fed much like an infant child. Look carefully and you can see one getting squirts in the background:

thirsty tiger from Mary Qin on Vimeo.

Westwood parking

laelene Posted in photo blog,Tags: , , , , , ,
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Bruins understand that Westwood is a crazy place to try to find street parking at, but this summer, it got out of control with construction and special groups arriving. Did they really need FIVE signs here?!?!

five separate parking signs restricting parking on gayley ave

Ok, seriously? Isn't this a bit overkill? Might as well just put one sign that says NO PARKING except 6-8 PM Sunday.

Germaphobes make me sick

laelene Posted in general blog,Tags: , ,
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Are you a hypochondriac?  Well, stay away from me.  I have absolutely no patience for people who obsess over the cleanliness of this and that when they’re completely ignoring all the other “dirty” things around them, then think that their actions are making them less susceptible to getting sick.  This was a topic on the radio one morning this week and I listened as people went on and on about never touching door handles or elevator buttons.  The irony is, they probably never give a second thought to touching their car doors (which is likely just as dirty, if not more so than door handles).  Or what about your very own phone or other personal device?  Let’s not get into how many germs can collect on those items.  I can just imagine the germaphobe wiping down their work phone while forgetting all about their cell phone.

“But wait, it’s not about germs per se, it’s about getting other people’s germs!” you cry.  Ok, then what about money?  When you obsess day in and day out about getting germs from public doors, do you also refuse to handle cash?  Do you wipe down your ATM or credit card every time you hand it to someone?  Do you wear gloves every time you need to use the printer?  I seriously doubt it.  So, in so many ways you aren’t thinking about, you’re exposing yourself to germs all day long.  Don’t pat yourself on the back for a job well done and think that you didn’t get sick last year because of the measures you took.  It’s probably more of the immunity you’ve built up from your body having to handle those dirty germs you got while paying at the cash register.

It also annoys me that plenty of the hypochondriacs out there flush their toilets right next to the sink and never give it a second thought to close the lid.  Plenty of germs get thrown out into the air when a toilet is flushed and inevitably end up on you, the counter, the sink, etc.  That’s a pretty dirty scenario, yet it rarely gets any attention.  Instead, it’s all about elevator buttons and door handles.  So many things make no sense to me – why would you “clean” a counter top with a sponge teeming with germs without thinking to give it a quick couple of seconds in the microwave to zap those suckers first?  People are really irrational with their decisions.

So if you’re one of those clean freaks, you might not want to know about all the “unclean” things I do (or clean things I don’t do).

Dental shot

laelene Posted in photo blog,Tags: , , , ,
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So I have a root canal in my front tooth, which I have no recollection of receiving and no clue why I needed it in the first place. I thought root canals were for older people, but apparently not!

180 degree x-ray scan of my teeth

That's what my jaw looks like!

It’s weird to see an x-ray of yourself… like, “hey, that’s my spine!” Kind of surreal.

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