Driving from Argentina to Alaska to Asia

Last night on Highway A1A near St. Augustine, I drove past this 1928 Graham Paige Model 610 touring car, puttering down the road with hazard lights blinking and the words "Spark Your Dream" and "Argentina to Alaska: Done!" on the side.

Showing a remarkable lack of geographic knowledge, I told my children they were probably heading back home, forgetting that we live on a peninsula that doesn't get much South America-bound traffic.

The drivers are Herman and Candelaria Zapp, Argentineans who've been driving all over the Americas at a top speed of 35 mph with their two young sons. In 2003, they finished a 43,717-mile drive from Buenos Aires to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in two years, eight months and 17 days.

The boys are enjoying the trip, Pampa never asks "are we there yet?" instead "Where are we going?"

Pampa was a product of the trip, as Herman Zapp told CNN:

... we got a romantic moment in Guatemala. In Belize we found out something with Canny. In Mexico, grows in the belly. And in North Carolina was born our son.

Planning next to cross Asia for three years, they're financing their travels in part with a book, Spark Your Dream, which sounds from its back cover to be as arduous as their journey:

Yes, since you're reading, sit here with us. Pack light. No, don't sit there, get yourself at the driver seat. Something good is going to happen in our lives so let's go and seize the moment. It will be a tour in the exterior world, which only reflects a fraction of the journey in your interior.

One thing that surprised me, from photos, is that the Zapps appear to be anatomically normal. I figured that crossing the world for six-plus years in an antique car with no shock absorbers would give you giant calloused baboon ass.

Travel · Cars · 2007/06/28 · 29 COMMENTS · Link

Google Works in Mysterious Ways

When things are slow on Workbench, activity on this weblog falls to the five subjects of enduring interest to visitors who make comments:

• Whether lottery winners should be able to hide their identities
• Whether Best Buy sucks
• Whether Target sucks
• Whether Art Bell sucks
• Whether Orlando Bloom dates outside his race

On the first subject, people who support secrecy for lottery winners will enjoy a story from Canada this morning: A guy was caught planning to kidnap, rob and murder a couple who won $27 million Canadian dollars (around $25 million U.S.). His plot was foiled because he was a Chatty Cathy:

The TVA television network, citing police sources, said Lima first began telling friends and acquaintances about his plans in the days after the winnings were awarded. ...

The lottery corporation's website states that "Loto-Quebec reserves the right to publish, for advertising purposes, the names, addresses and photos of winners."

I don't know how I've become one of Google's most trusted authorities on these subjects, but it's a continuing source of entertainment. Eighteen months after one unpleasant experience at Target, I'm still getting reviews of my parenting from people like Proud Target Team Member:

I am so sick and tired of guests coming up to team members and using the age old defense.." But I spend 1000s of dollars here. Which am I supposed to reply like some servant a 1000 dollars oooo boy I'm sorry! Your story is so whiny, your just another spoiled middle ager...your kids are probably little brats, and sorry but sometimes we are tired after an 8 hour shift to pick up after you. Target employees are harassed and a lot of times we take it just because people decide to be mean. We depend a lot on LODs to help us with disgruntled guests, and just because you think you are better then the "lowly target worker" who you describe her next job to be in the fast food chain...you are mistaken about the target employee. Most of us are going to college and go on to other things. Just because you think you made it big doesn't give you the right to take it out on a worker there. Perhaps she was just doing her job. Yes there are mistakes but there are two sides to every story. I am so sick and tired of people thinking we are lower class citizens i have been with target for 4 years since being in school because I like helping people, good flexible hours,and I love the store...sorry I didn't want to work in a cubicle or in the mall. For one person saying they will never shop at target, I have 20 guests that give me a huge smile, or say that I have made their day. Shame on you for making fun of her shirt and making a remark to her size, I sure hope your kids don't learn their morals from you.

I'm surprised that Proud hasn't climbed the ranks higher than Team Member. Anyone who can work in big box retail for four years without developing a deep hatred of humankind is Leader on Duty material.

Google · Business · 2007/06/20 · 5 COMMENTS · Link

Tim Bray: RSS 'Twice as Good' as Atom

Tim Bray, one of the creators of both XML and Atom, has some fun at the expense of the RSS Advisory Board:

Yep, ladies and gentlemen, it looks like there's trouble on the horizon. On the RFC4287 syndication-format front, it may have been stable since 2005 and widely deployed, but watch out, there's a new version of RSS 2.0! (2.0.9, to be precise). RSS 2.0 is sort of RFC4287's main competition, and if there are two different specs, I guess that must mean it's twice as good.

RSS 2.0 is clearly Atom's main competition, and for the moment it's winning by a large margin. According to the latest stats on Syndic8, 80.6 percent of the 510,000 feeds in its database are RSS feeds and 82.1 percent of those are in RSS 2.0 format. Atom totals 16.6 percent.

Atom isn't gaining market share in Syndic8, either. As of February 2006, 77.8 percent of its 455,000 feeds were RSS, 18.1 percent were Atom, and 68.2 percent of the RSS feeds were in RSS 2.0 format.

I'm not pointing this out to cheerlead RSS -- I like Atom and would have no problem if these numbers were reversed in three years. But Atom's nowhere close to knocking off the competition and there are umpteen thousand RSS 2.0 feeds, so somebody should be working on RSS interop.

Rss · Atom · 2007/06/16 · 5 COMMENTS · Link

Read the Fine Print On Your Whataburger

A sign on the front door of a combined gas station and Whataburger restaurant in Liberty City, Texas:

By entering these premises you hereby agree to resolve all disputes or claims of any kind whatsoever, which arise from the products, services or premises, by way of binding arbitration, not litigation. No suit or action may be filed in any state or federal court. Any arbitration shall be governed by the Federal Arbitration Act, and administered by the American Mediation Association."

Although I generally avoid fast food restaurants that require binding arbitration, this one was cleaner than an operating room and had a '50s diner interior filled with Beatles memorabilia and life-size statues of the Blues Brothers. The food was delicious and passed without incident.

Texas · Food · 2007/06/13 · 8 COMMENTS · Link

Comic Book Editor Has Trouble with Rejection

I tried selling comic book stories in the early '90s, requesting the submission guidelines for several dozen publishers. My pitches received form letter rejections from Marvel, Malibu Comics, Innovation and Now Comics. I've kept all of this stuff, which I ought to put online. Most of the companies are long gone.

An unnamed submission editor at Marvel Comics told me that my "line work is stiff or heavy; loosen it up." This was difficult advice to follow because I'm not an artist and had sent them a written submission.

I did get one positive response, but it was bittersweet. The good news: Jim Shooter at Defiant Comics liked my Dark Dominion submission. The bad news: Defiant had gone out of business six months earlier.

Shooter, one of the most criticized figures in comics during his tenure as Marvel's editor-in-chief, was reviewing pitches and sending out letters of encouragement after his company folded.

The editor-in-chief of Slave Labor Graphics, Jennifer de Guzman, takes it personally when people criticize her rejection letters on their blogs:

... I will read the nasty stuff you say about us. If you don't want to ever be published by SLG, you can insult us and let your friends call us rude names in public posts all you want. It points to your utter lack of class, but it's your right. Just know that you're closing that door for good should we see it. So be smart and say it in locked posts! Maybe we won't find out that you're a jerk until after we publish you. Good luck with that.

Comics · Writing · 2007/06/07 · 10 COMMENTS · Link

Today's Bible Lesson: Don't Barter with God

On the June 1 Back to the Bible radio show, which airs on 1,200 religious stations around the world, host Woodrow Kroll told listeners how I could seek forgiveness from God:

Jesus wants to take the burden of your guilt away. I read this little story. I just thought I had to pass it on to you. The question was asked, "How much would the Vatican pay for the pope's name?" Now that's not a theoretical question. A fellow by the name of Rogers Cadenhead, who is an admitted domain hoarder, bought the domain www.benedictxvi before Pope John Paul died. What he thought was, I'll get the domain name. When the pope dies, if Benedict becomes the next pope, I'll own the name; they'll have to buy the name from me.

Now he knew that this was a good deal, because the name www.popebenedictxvi sold on e-bay for $ 16,000. So he thought his was in like flint, except Cadenhead said this. He was a good Roman Catholic and he said, "I don't want the money. I'm not going to anger 1.1 billion Catholics and my grandmother," he quipped.

So he wasn't interested in really selling the name. But there was something he wanted. So he told the Vatican, "I will give the name to you, and here are three things I want. Number one, I want one of those hats." I have no idea what what he's talking about -- maybe the pope's hat. "And number two," he says, "I want a free night's stay at the Vatican Hotel." Ridiculous things. But number three was really important. He said, "I want complete absolution -- no questions asked -- for the third week of March 1987".

Now I don't know what went on the third week of March 1987, but it appears to me something went on pretty big in his life that he needed absolution for. See, what he is saying is this: "If I could buy forgiveness, it would be worth any price I had to pay." And what I'm saying is this. You can't buy forgiveness, but you can confess your sin and get forgiveness free.

What Peter shows us in this passage is, Jesus is anxious to forgive us, even when we don't really come clean with Him -- when we answer "Do you love Me?" with "Uh, I like You pretty much." Jesus is merciful and kind and willing to forgive. And if He can forgive Peter of what Peter did to Him, He can surely forgive you.

Domains · Religion · 2007/06/06 · 16 COMMENTS · Link

RSS Specification (Version 2.0.9) Published

The proposal to revise the RSS specification has passed 5-1 with RSS Advisory Board members Matthew Bookspan, Rogers Cadenhead, Christopher Finke, Randy Charles Morin and Paul Querna voting in favor, Eric Lunt voting against and members James Holderness, Meg Hourihan, Jenny Levine and Jason Shellen abstaining.

The Extending RSS section of the specification has been clarified with the addition of the words "and attributes" twice in the following sentence:

A RSS feed may contain elements and attributes not described on this page, only if those elements and attributes are defined in a namespace.

No other changes were made. All edits to the specification are logged. This revision of the document has the version number 2.0.9.

Rss · 2007/06/06 · 3 COMMENTS · Link

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