Israel Trip - 2009

Here are a few pics from the recent trip to Israel - better late than never I guess.

This is a waterfall near the Dead Sea

This is Jerusalem at night

The Dome on the Rock

Nanowrimo - a month of giving America Carpal Tunnel

Nanowrimo - National Novel Writing Month is a once a year kick in the ass for the 1000's of asiring writers that just can't seem to get off their butt's and put the fingers to the keyboard... well, I guess they don't have to get off their butts for that, but you know what I mean. It's a funny challenge to try and get people to spew out 50k words. I would guess that about 90% of the contestants bomb out after 10k words, and another 5% after 25-30k...

Anyhow, it all seems like good fun for a bunch of people who need a deadline and have time to do something.

Hating on the Government...

Well, actually I should say I'm hating on Citibank, but since they are owned and funded by the US government (by-in-large), but still operated by a bunch of bankers that are partying like it is 2006, I'm not really sure who I'm hating... we'll say Citibank just to be safe.

Citibank recently informed me that the interest rate on my credit card would be 25.99% APR starting January 1st, 2010. This is f-ing extortionist. My interest rate in early 2000 was about 11.99% when interest rates were at about 4%. So, they were borrowing at 4% and lending at 12% - essentially tripling their money. Now, they are borrowing at close to 1% interest from the government and lending at 26% - that is ridiculous... especially since the government bailed them out to the tune of $40 billion!

Normally I'm not to the type to complain about these things, but when the administration has essentially bought and propped up a failing bank, and simultaneously passed consumer protection bills designed to hold credit card rates low and you get a notification that your interest rate is going from a lofty 19.99% to 25.99%, that is ridiculous.

Citi, consider this my formal opt-out!

Pyramidding

So this past weekend I had a friend in town and we did all the touristy stuff that I had been putting off - it's a good thing someone finally came to visit, otherwise I might have never done it. We hit the three major pyramid sites (Giza, Sakara, Dashur) all in a day (and yes, the sphinx is at Giza), and then hit the Egyptian Museum (which has too much stuff, almost none of which is labeled - it really is more of a warehouse than a museum), the Citadel, and the Khan al Kalili (the big tourist shopping bizarre (which is bizarre).

This is the Sakara pyramid - look just like what is on the front of a Sakara beer.

Here is the sphinx, sitting in front of the pyramid. It is very lethargic and doesn't move much.

Here is me and some cute German gal in front of one of the pyramids. Unlike the guy on the camel, she didn't try to charge me 5LE for taking a photo with her.

More Diving in Sharm

This is more than a week old, but I did some pretty nice dives down in Sharm El Sheikh the weekend before last. This trip was an oilmen gone diving weekend as there were five of us from the company there. We had people of all levels, and the area we were at was good for that. Here are some of the photos.

This is a little fish sitting on a brilliantly colored piece of coral. Photo taken in 25' of water.
Photograph of Mr. Gabe swimming with a school of yellow-tailed barracuda. Photo take in 30' of water.

This was a beautiful piece of soft coral that I spotted on our last dive. The color of it was quite striking to me. Photo taken in about 50' of water.