Orange County Metblogs » oc_eric

Huntington Beach Snowflake Lighting

oc_eric — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 16:00:35 +0000

Well Sunday night myself and my girlfriend went down to Main St. in Huntington Beach to catch the annual lighting of the snowflakes and the parade. She pretty much had to drag me out of the house I am a Scrooge this time of year. But I had a really good time and enjoyed how Surf City USA brought in the end of the year festivities. We walked down the middle of the road and all of the restaurants and bars had food to try and the shops were all open but it really didn’t seem crowded. It was like everyone was enjoying their families and each other. Next to Duke’s there were a couple of Woodies parked there to show off.

These cars are beautiful and I would love to have one of my own. (Hints for anyone looking to buy me a present)

In the same area as the Woodies there was a stage with a band, sorry I didn’t catch there name but all the kids were dancing and enjoying them with their holiday tunes. I then saw this old guy that I used to know when I was a kid. He was setting down on a stage with a bunch of kids waiting to see him… You guessed it Santa was that guy him and his wife were there to take photos with all the kiddies and if you can make it out in the photo I really liked the Hawaiian shirt he had on.

So after messed around there for a while we made our way to the pier to grab a quick shot of the snow flakes I mean what kind of guy would I have been to miss out on the reason everyone came out that night. Here is just about as good as a shot as I could get of them running down to Ruby’s at the end of the pier.

Happy Holidays everyone…

WEEDS on Showtime

oc_eric — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 20:24:48 +0000

Okay the last couple of years I have been hooked on the HBO Original Series. Most recently Rome has been my show of choice. I was talking to a friend a couple of weeks ago and he said he had been watching WEEDS on Showtime I think I have found a new favorite show. So today while I am goofing off with nothing to do I am watching the whole season ON-DEMAND. I am on episode number 7 right now and I strongly recommend it. Jenji Kohan is the Creator, Writer, and Executive Producer and is my new number 1 person in Hollywood…. If you watch the show you will know what it has to do with Orange County :)

Viva la HB

oc_eric — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 18:31:34 +0000

This weekend I was goofing around on Main St. in Huntington Beach. There is everything you want to do all in this one area shopping, food, movies, and the beach. It hit me this weekend why do I go anywhere else. I usually like to walk down and grab a bite to eat at one of the many bars and swing by Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory for one of their caramel candy covered apples that I split with my girl on the walk home. At this point in my life I don’t think there is any place I would rather be than in Huntington Beach and working in Orange County.

This is a shot of just one of the guys surfing off of the HB peer this weekend.

Right to Life Sweet Potato

oc_eric — Thu, 10 Nov 2005 18:52:00 +0000

So I was messing around on the web today and my buddy hit me up with this Ebay link If I had $20,000 lieing around it would be at my house in a jar right now.

Why doesn’t anything this cool ever grow in my yard. I get some neat mushrooms growing but nothing this cool.

Happy Birthday USMC

oc_eric — Thu, 10 Nov 2005 15:51:55 +0000

Well its that time of year again its the 230th Birthday of the Marine Corps. I will be drinking on Main St. in Huntington Beach tonight and working with a hang over tomorrow.

Semper Fi

Storm Watch 2005

oc_eric — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 13:18:32 +0000

So this morning I do my ritual of waking up and turning on the boob-tube to catch some news and notice the STORM that was rocking Southern California. I swear the news in this state acts like any rain we get is the end of the world and California is going to was out to sea. I would almost pay but think I will work on it myself for a news system that gives me the news I want to hear when I turn it on in the morning. Give me a couple of minutes of weather (not the drama) and then hit national topics that I find interesting (preselected), followed by only my sports headlines (maybe some info on my fantasy teams), then finish it up with some business news. Oh and on my way out the door after my morning shower is done tell me what traffic looks like. Then I could get rid of then you could send the “news reporters” out to get real acting jobs. Using their years of experience of acting like they care or hyping my grandmother up to think “Something in your house can kill you story at 11:00″

Jarhead Movie

oc_eric — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 14:08:51 +0000

Whelp I couldn’t wait for the movie Jarhead to come out this weekend. I even took off from work a bit early to see it. I really didn’t care for the movie too much. I mean it was a pretty boring story of a guys time in the Marines pretty much the same as mine. It was really uneventful unlike the guys that are currently in Iraq. At least he got to see some action if it was only 4 days. I was in for 5 years and never had the opportunity to fight. I guess it is just a matter of your time and place in life. I do think there will be some other guys to tell stories from their current trips to Iraq that are going to be more eventful and if you ask me will make better movies. I am not going to say I didn’t like the movie but it just wasn’t that good of a story. A good friend of mine picked up a copy of the book and finished it this weekend and said its way better than the movie and the movie does no justice to the book. I guess its one of those lost in translation things. I will be borrowing his copy and reading it next to see what its like.

Checking the Traffic

oc_eric — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 17:19:15 +0000

For all of the SoCal natives out there I am sure everyone has been stuck in traffic on one of our beloved freeways out here at one time in their lives. Some times you can catch a traffic report on your radio when your already in the middle of your commute. I switched to satellite radio so this helps me catch traffic updates before I get too far along in my drive. I have been using different websites for a while but the two best I can think of are these two CalTrans and Sigalert . I try to check them anytime I have my computer in front of me before I hit the road. You can see if your primary route is going to be slow or stopped and you can plan another route to your destination. Here is an example shot of the map on Sigalert. If you move your mouse over the red, yellow, and green indicators it will tell you the speed in that area and reason for the backup in most cases.

Enjoy your drive…

Back from NY

oc_eric — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 17:16:28 +0000

Last week I had to visit NY for work. I really like that city don’t get me wrong but there is something about SoCal that I like much more. I think I realized what it was when I got there and my buddy took me to get “Mexican” food. At a place called Tequillaville by Grand Central Station. I didn’t mind it but it’s not like when he comes out to Irvine for work the first place I am going to take him is to get pizza. Well I figured what harm could it do at least their Coronas were cold and there atmosphere wasn’t that big of a let down. I got a menu and I ordered a Quesadilla figuring I would try the safe play. Boy was I wrong it wasn’t horrible but it just wasn’t as good as I could make off of my own stove with some Kraft slices. I then realized I don’t think I would ever be able to live in NY just because of the Mexican food. So today when I got back to town I made my way to Taco Factory in Irvine for lunch and washed those memories of NY’s Mexican food out of my mind. Viva La OC….

Being a Geek

oc_eric — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 14:18:40 +0000

While catching up on some of my long neglected RSS/ATOM feeds yesterday I ran across a quote by Russell Beatie it said

If someone’s using a PC to demo the Next Big Thing… Then it’s not the next big thing.

Right off the bat I was kind of taken a back by reading this. I mean come on my PC is my life I pretty much do everything on it from shopping, researching things to do on my time off, and working.

Then when i started thinking about it yeah he seems to be right. Besides using the PC for shopping and work I think it has pretty much reached its end. The average person can only do so much with a computer (check emails, surf the web, a couple of games). Unless you think of something to totally change the way a PC is used things arena’t really going to change that much. Don’t get me wrong there are a million other things out there a computer can do but just not your every day PC.

With the advancements in technologies these days I don’t see a reason why your even going to need a full blown desktop or laptop PC in every day life. With the development of true web applications on the rise and the bandwidth that is being pumped into your home their is almost no reason to have a full fledged PC anymore. There is also no reason for companies to use PCs in most cases all this could be done with diskless computers that pull their applications off of the wire. The way things are changing I don’t think it will be long till companies realize they can switch their desktops back to pretty much dumb or simi-smart terminals and get rid or most of their PC support staff. Kind of go back to the days of the mainframes and not have a “Tech Guy” at every office. If a PC or terminal goes down you just replace it, have the user login, and things are like new. A couple of changes in the way companies look at their computing infrastructure would save them tons of money in the long run and more headaches down the road. Once the corporate world took to the idea of diskless computers it would follow into most homes and change the way home computing is done.

Some times I live in a dream world but the technologies are out there now its just a matter of time before people start putting them together.