Live from Austin!

With the latest South Park being a time-travel story about Nintendo Wii, atheism, and sea otters, I must admit I did momentarily consider the possibility that either Trey Parker or Matt Stone had been reading my web site.

However, it’s quite common that people think that TV episodes contain coded messages specifically for them, and 99.9% of the time it just means they stopped taking their medications. So unless there’s an upcoming episode with a squirrel named Frida, I’m going to assume it’s a coincidence.

But that Allied Atheist Alliance logo with the otter head was pretty cool…

It appears I have located another job within IBM. What’s more, it’s one that’s entirely suited to my skill set, in the technical sales part of the organization. My appetite has come back with a vengeance.

On Saturday we went on a day trip to Dallas. Kind of insane if you look at the map, but [rothko] had a business meeting, and I didn’t want her to have to drive for 8 hours given her tendonitis. Plus, I needed some distraction from my work situation.

We met up with [stick_figure] and had some lunch; then [rothko] took the Prius to Arlen—er, Garland—and [stick_figure] and I went to the aquarium.

If you know me, you can probably guess the big appeal of the aquarium: otters. In fact, the Dallas World Aquarium is the only place in the US to have el lobo del rio, the Giant River Otter of the Amazon. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a 5′ otter.

Dealey Plaza was a strange experience. It’s more or less exactly as it was in 1963. The picket fence is still there, with the car park behind it.

“I don’t buy the tomatoes with the stems on them. They don’t degrade. They go down the sink and into the water. Then they get lodged in the throats of little otters.”

—Christopher Walken in The Observer

England seemed much more bearable this time. I think there were several reasons for this. Firstly, now that my family have all up and moved to Bournemouth, there are actually things to do when I’m visiting. About the only thing worth doing in Hyde Heath was getting a lift to Amersham station and a train to London.

The second thing is that it was summer, which means the rain was slightly less frequent and it was pleasantly warm. There’s definitely something to be said for visiting at times other than Christmas.

Another bonus is that I love the sea. I could probably just sit on the beach and listen to it for an hour.

The final factor is that I hadn’t been back to England in three years. My mother didn’t even begin to annoy me for the first week. Edd seems to have taken over the responsibility of arguing with dad, so I had no choice but to get on with everyone.

Bournemouth is still very much the traditional English seaside resort, complete with beach huts, pier, and chip shops. The town center has streets of shops radiating away from a central park, with a balloon ride for sightseers. West of the town center, where my parents live, the hills almost become cliffs and there are all kinds of excitingly rugged chines suitable for geocaching.

To the east is the New Forest, so called because it was planted on the orders of Henry VIII, who felt that England needed a ready supply of timber for wartime use. Obviously for me, one of the high points of the visit was the weaselarium. It’s officially called the Otter, Owl and Wildlife Park, but there’s a clear emphasis on mustelids. Oh, yes, there are plenty of owls I suppose, and some deer… but they have weasels galore. American river otters, European river otters, Asian small-clawed otters, mink, pine martens, stoats, ferrets, polecats, and even a couple of badgers. I think I can safely say you won’t see more varieties of weasel in one place. The animals all seemed to have plenty of space, too. Inside there was a definite musky weasel smell, which we began to recognize from time to time while out walking in places like Hengistbury Head.

Being away for July 4th, we still managed to see fireworks, but without the attendant nauseating warmongering and overpatriotic fervour. The evenings were warm enough to wander the beach, mostly. All told, a pleasant vacation.

Last night I spent what seemed like almost the whole night dreaming about sea otters. Swimming with them, feeding them, petting them, helping them clamber onto the dock, examining their paws, talking to them…

Wednesday we got a courtesy car pick-up from the rental company. We rented a Toyota Prius. I was intrigued by how well a hybrid gasoline/electric car would work, and this seemed a good chance to give one a thorough test drive. Or rather, for sara to give one a thorough test drive…

What we hadn’t been expecting was that it was a fully tricked-out Prius, complete with GPS satellite navigation system and route finder DVD-ROM for the onboard computer. We told it to take us west to the coast, and then south to the Monterey Bay Aquarium via the coastline route. It verbally directed sara out of the city. What with the directions and having our position shown on a scrolling zoomable map at all times, we were both able to forget about navigation and concentrate on the scenery. (Sand dunes. Surf. People surfing.)

As we arrived at the aquarium, it was otter feeding time. There was an enormous crowd of people around the tank, so we went out onto the deck instead and looked out into the bay. Sure enough, there were wild sea otters floating out in the kelp beds! Four of them. With the aid of the 18x zoom on the camcorder, I got some DV footage of otters at play.

We were hungry on the way back, so we asked the car to find us a nearby Indian restaurant. It turned out we were just off the El Camino Real, probably the world’s largest strip mall, so that wasn’t a problem. Unfortunately the first restaurant was closed, so we had to argue with the car a little to get a route to a different place. Phil Dick would have loved it, walking into a restaurant because our car had recommended it…

We got an average of over 50mpg, both city driving and highways, even with San Francisco’s hills to deal with. We travelled 280 miles total on $10 of gas, which was half a tank full.

I noticed that IBM had a huge ad on the freeway exit that leads to Oracle’s headquarters, saying “Our database software is the #1 seller. Now, who’s got game?” Larry Ellison must be really pissed off.

Undoubtedly, one of the high points of the weekend in Minnesota was spotting an otter. A wild otter. It was just otting along between two of the ten thousand lakes.

From the Telegraph:

A zoo keeper was held captive inside an enclosure for half an hour after a pair of otters made off with his keys. Warren Crutchley, 38, had to call for help when Filly and Smudge disappeared into their pool with the makeshift toy. He had left the bunch of keys behind him in the door of the compound at the Aquarium of the Lakes, in Windermere, Cumbria, when the animals struck.

As soon as he realised what was happening he tried to lure Smudge into dropping them by offering her food but she started jumping in and out of the water away from his reach. “I stopped trying to catch her and ended up yelling for help,” Mr Crutchley added. “My colleagues eventually let me out with a spare set of keys. I felt a proper fool.”

As one of the keepers at Seattle Aquarium explained to me, they have to keep the otters under lock and key, because the little furry rascals easily work out how to slide a bolt…