Last weekend we got to hang with Marnie & James while Greg went to the Indy race VIP-style in Sonoma. We checked out Fairyland by Lake Merritt in Oakland and then took Linda on the express public transit tour of San Francisco (ferry from Jack London Square, Streetcar to Pier 39, Cable Car to Union Square, and BART back to Oakland). Fun!

More photos here.

File This Under "Things Appropriately Named"

Newsweek reports that there is a type of oil exploration called "fracking":

Central to that development is the use of fracking fluids. Largely unregulated,
they've been employed by the energy industry for decades and, with the exception
of diesel, can be made up of nearly any set of chemicals. Also, propriety trade
laws don't require energy companies to disclose their ingredients. "It is much
like asking Coca-Cola to disclose the formula of Coke," says Ron Heyden, a
Halliburton executive, in recent testimony before the COGCC. Despite its
widespread use and somewhat mysterious mix, fracturing fluid was deemed in 2004
by the Environmental Protection Agency as safe for the environment and
groundwater. Dave Dillon, the COGCC's top engineering manager, says nearly every
one of Colorado's 35,600 wells are "fracked" and that a minimum of 100,000
gallons are used per well, resulting in millions of gallons pumped into the
ground each year. And since it's typically pumped far below groundwater tables,
Congress exempted fracking fluids from the Safe Drinking Water Act in 2005.

Obviously this predates the coinage of "frak" on Battlestar Galactica - but, god, how appropriate.

The Lame McCain Campaign from This Modern World

This and more at Salon.com. I really like the background banner - "He'll get those kids off your lawn."

Drunk History

Drunk History on Funny or Die. Historical experts discussing their favorite events in history while completely wasted, and those drunken descriptions being acted out by the likes of Michael Cera and Jack Black. This is at least a PG-13. People cuss when they're drunk.

Emirates A380 in town

The Emirates Air humongous A380 is giving tours over on Imperial at LAX. We'll see how much noise these suckers make when they lift off. Some of the older planes seem to be the worst offenders. I think that's a New Zealand Boeing 747 in the foreground, for perspective. Ooh, it's gone now, and I'm about to drive by there.

Update: Greg, who is now "Mr. Boeing" says:
In your blog you called the plane in the foreground a 747 not a 47. Probably a 777 2 engines no hump. Seems too wide to be a 767 but may be. 757 is skinny.

I knew that about the hump but the feed was grainy. Anyhoo, it's back at the museum after tooling around the runways I suppose. No noise yet. It will probably take off at 3 AM or something.

Update to Update: Greg and Amelie went by later on and it was back. They took these pics.