Galveston Bay is home to one of the largest ports in the United States. Giant container ships and tankers go through the Galveston ship channel every day. The line up in the Gulf to be inspected. I am told when things get real busy they can wait weeks offshore for entrance into the port. The ship channel is basically a 50 foot deep trench hollowed out of the bay that goes from the inlet of the gulf almost to downtown Houston with exit ramps to the various terminals where things are loaded and unloaded.
Surprisingly enough, most of the bay is around 6 ft deep, sometimes right next to the 50ft ship channel it will be 3 feet deep. The ships push a lot of water when they move, they can suck all the water off of a reef or out of a cove then the wake brings it back with a vengeance. This can easily capsize a boat if you are in the wrong place or not paying attention. Kayaks? I would rather not think about that.
Well holding true to the American way someone found a way to make this potential source of death and destruction a good thing and a way to make money. WWW.tankersurfcharters.com will take you out into the ship channel when the tides are right and the tankers are plowing and let you ride the wake of one of these behemoths as it endlessly breaks over the shallower areas next to the ship channel. These rides can go for miles at a time. The wind, choppy water and cold keep this from being a wintertime sport but if you are making your spring break or summer vacation plays, remember, you too can ride the big one in Galveston Bay.
For many years we had a screen door and tubs of CDs under our bed. I like this better than those big cabinets that sit at the bottom of the bed where the TV levitates straight up. This is more elegant, although I think someone built this for themselves and it’s not commercially available, it could use a little more refining. It would be cool if it were on a sleep timer and could also wake you up in the morning.
Things have been quiet around here because we have been on vacation. We rented a beach house in Galveston. We were there a whole week. Katie flew down from College and Sarah and Greg stopped by as well. Fishing was number one on the agenda, and fish we did. We did surf fishing, wade fishing, kayak fishing and of course boat fishing. During this fishing extravaganza we hit a major milestone. It’s called a Texas Slam. That is when the same angler catches a trout, a redfish and a flounder on the same outing. Typically these three don’t hang out together and don’t go for their food the same way, so you have to move around a lot and figure out how to give em what they want.
I believe no one in our party has ever had a slam, but not for lack of trying. I will give you 2 guesses who it was, and I can tell you it wasn’t Greg and it wasn’t me. Yup, on her second trip in a kayak Katie was Texas slamming. On her first trip the day before she caught plenty of fish too. We took our yaks to Galveston Island State Park, one of my favorite places to kayak fish. We used a combination of dead shrimp and plastic lures. We caught a few fish on our paddle out past the marshes, then Katie found a redfish hangout. We both pulled in a bunch of reads with the odd pinfish and croaker thrown in. It was so much fun.
When things slowed down, we figured we should start heading in. Katie had a flight to catch. The wind was blowing hard against us so we took a couple of breaks on our way back. On the last stop, we were bringing in our lines and Katie yelled “I got a fish!” at first she didn’t even know it was on her line. This one felt different than the others. Sure enough out popped a flounder to complete her trifecta. The rest of the paddle in was much easier with the adrenalin burst of the recent accomplishment.
No, it’s not a sports conference or a techno band, it stands for Near field communication. Now don’t get that glazed look in your eyes. I am giving you a tip here that will impress your friends, make you look smarter and get you elected to the board of some lemonade stand startup. In the simplest terms NFC is this – two way communication between 2 devices that are very close to each other. I know, it doesn’t sound like a big deal BUT it could change the way we do things like wireless phones and wireless internet did. When these things came out there was plenty of wired phones and wired connections to the internet. But, it was the “how” not the “what” that was a big deal. Can you imagine having to plug an Ethernet cable into your Smartphone to check your mail or bring up a map? The “how” made all the difference, it’s still just connecting to the internet.
So, how is this NFC thing going to change the how for the masses? I predict in 2 areas authorization/payment and data sharing.
With a NFC enabled phone and merchant you could pay for your burger, shoes or Redbox rental just by waving your phone past a sensor. It’s like EZTag for drive-thrus. Vending machines would be a natural. There is no reason you couldn’t buy a ticket online then use the ticket with a wave of your phone to get into the concert.
The other area is sharing data. I could give you a song/picture/contact info/directions . . . . stored on my phone (or cloud) by tapping your phone with mine. I could add you as a friend on my social network with a clink of plastic. We could split the check for lunch with a swipe-tap-tap.
This technology isn’t new. These aren’t very outlandish or even original predictions so why talk about it now? Critical mass, there are enough pieces of the solution getting good enough and available to make it interesting to more than the bleeding edge types. The NJ transit system is experimenting with it. Google seems solidly behind it. The technology is being included in phones even though most of their owners are unaware of it today.
If this gains traction, and I think it will, digging in your pocket for exact change will seem as arcane as looking something up in the Yellow Pages. Someone is going to brand it calling “tap to pay” or “phone pass” – something catchy but it’s going to be NFC but you already knew that, you are ahead of the curve.
As you may know some eastern religions believe in reincarnation. And some believe you keep reincarnating until you become a Brahma bull. Could this be the reincarnation equivalent of 2 people jumping into a taxi at the same time from both sides?
So the NBA is on strike, or locked out or . . . . yelling at each other about money. I can’t say I care much. The NBA games over the years have deteriorated into spoiled super athletes who run down the court (notice I didn’t say up and down) and shoot, maybe dunk. If they miss, they hope the ball bounces their way or that one of the regular athletes gets it and gives it to them so they can shoot again. If the other team gets it? Well that’s the way it goes, I will wait here so I can shoot again next time. There is no “I” in team, in fact there is not much team in these teams. /end rant
Now, in more fun news. There is a new small sneaker company called “Athletic Propulsion Labs“. That’s a pretty cool name. Well APL was started by 2 brothers (Adam and Ryan Godston) who’s dad and friends worked in the sneaker business for the big companies and the boys played basketball for USC. APL created a sneaker technology called “load and launch” which is supposed to make you jump higher.
Well, the NBA decided to ban the shoe. I know what you are thinking . . . those bastards! Not so fast. When you think of what it must cost to get one of those spoiled super athletes to smile and hold your shoe, well, it’s not for the little guy. What if the organization of these super athletes said “your shoe is so much better than these expensive fancy shoes we already have we are not going to let our players use them – it would be like cheating, an unfair advantage”. Now what do you think of the NBA ban? How many shoes do you think NBA players buy a year? That’s right, exactly the same number of zeppelins I buy a year.
What kid wouldn’t want an “unfair advantage” while they are playing for their college, high school, middle school or on the playground? That’s right, it’s the big zepplin number again. I think you can only buy them online right now but how long do you think that will last? Every shoe store in the world is going to want to yell – get your rocket launchers here, you can have shoes better the Lebron James’s.
Yeah, I wish I had a piece of this company, their numbers are really going to take off . . . the potential is sky high . . . they will grow by leaps and bounds . . .
. . . then there was PacMan, Zork, Doom, Civilization, The Sims, World of Warcraft, Call of Duty and Angry Birds . . .
As time went by there were sequels to sequels but there were also, shall we say niche games. These games were not trying to appeal to the masses, they were targeting a very specific audience. Some of the more notable efforts were around simulations like Sim City, or Flight and Train Simulators. While browsing the interwebs I saw this “game”. I think it has taken the simulation game to it’s limits. This game appeals to a very specific form of sanitation worker, yes those guys who yearn to ware the orange vest that live to suck dirt – the Street Sweeper. Then can run right down to Best Buy and ask for “Street Cleaning Simulator” of course they will be told there is no such game and if there is they won’t find it here. But there is such a game, buy it from Amazon, grab your hard hat and shinny vest, pop this into your PC and start sweeping. Go north AND south, just go crazy!
you were thinking “Pony” weren’t you? The popular child’s toy has been around a long time. But the cute little asexual animals in pastel colors don’t cast the same spell over the preschool set like they used to. Also, it’s been discovered that 37% of all “kids toys” are bought by adults for their own use. Sometimes these end up as cutesie workplace displays, or in collections and sometimes they are hidden away and played with secretly when nobody is home.
Taking this all into consideration there is an effort to expand the My Little Pony line, reinvigorate the internet savvy toddler market and tap into latent private playtime demand. One of the early efforts was My Little Princess Leia. Not surprisingly this appealed to both boys men and girls in focus groups. Keying on the Sci-Fi theme they considered My Little Spock which didn’t work out as well because it was “illogical”. Next, My Little Batman, it scored well in every demographic except “teenage girls”. This demographic can not be ignored in the US alone girls between the ages of 13 and 17 control spending (their own and their parents) roughly equal to the Pentagon. To address this market – My Little Lady Gaga! Next the superhero pony My Little Iron Man. Like all trends things got a little out of control, the alternate pony universe was dealt a serious blow after the release of My Little Edward Scissor Hands. This was the fist use of squatting pony models and the real blades were concerns of parents of preschoolers. Where will the Pony go from here? We will all just have to hold on to our combs and brushes and wait and see. When I say My Little . . . . now what do you think?
These are works of Mari Kasurinen see all of her creative and twisted Ponys here
Galveston Bay is home to one of the largest ports in the United States. Giant container ships and tankers go through the Galveston ship channel every day. The line up in the Gulf to be inspected. I am told when things get real busy they can wait weeks offshore for entrance into the port. The ship channel is basically a 50 foot deep trench hollowed out of the bay that goes from the inlet of the gulf almost to downtown Houston with exit ramps to the various terminals where things are loaded and unloaded.
that was a big deal. Can you imagine having to plug an Ethernet cable into your Smartphone to check your mail or bring up a map? The “how” made all the difference, it’s still just connecting to the internet.![cow[1]](http://thechristys.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/cow1.jpg "cow[1]")
So the NBA is on strike, or locked out or . . . . yelling at each other about money. I can’t say I care much. The NBA games over the years have deteriorated into spoiled super athletes who run down the court (notice I didn’t say up and down) and shoot, maybe dunk. If they miss, they hope the ball bounces their way or that one of the regular athletes gets it and gives it to them so they can shoot again. If the other team gets it? Well that’s the way it goes, I will wait here so I can shoot again next time. There is no “I” in team, in fact there is not much team in these teams. /end rant
