Mental Note: remember to scan and tile the floor pattern for the page's background.
Well, I did not get nearly as many photographs this year as I wanted to (the Polaroid kind of became a ball-and-chain), but I did get a few. I also shot a little video--I'm awaiting some frame-grabs and post-processing. But what I do have are stories and memories (and a really bad, really long joke)!
First off...a word from our sponsor. Unfortunately, I have not bothered
to contact "Eat Me Foods," the people who make/distribute the Skeleteen
drinks. Even if I did, I doubt they'd have much to say. But anyway, this
year, the California Car Caravan was unofficially sponsored by
Fukola Cola, one of the
Skeleteen beverages. You thought Jolt has a lot of caffeine? Mountain Dew?
Kick? Nahhhh..... Fukola has not only "(A Lot Of) Caffeine," according to
the label, but it has all kinds of natural things to fuk you up, as well!
Try stuff like ginseng, ginger, brazilian guarana, ginko biloba, mad dog
weed [yeah! I'm serious!], ma hung, gotu kola, dong quai, and essential
citrus oils. This is some STRONG stuff! It is quite tasty, but once it
hits you! POW!
Everyone's been asking me where to buy it. I can find it in most good
coffee shops in southern california (Orange County, LA County). Now, when
I use the word "good," I'm using it from an undergound/hacker point of
view, not from a gourmet-artsy-fartsy-Starbuck's point of view. I got my
case (24 bottle count) from Rock'n'Java in Newport Beach.
The Caravan worked out fairly well. We all
kept together. We had enough seats and equipment space. No fights. No
stealing. Anyway, we got there alive and in one piece. And everyone (...I think...I
hope) got their own little Net Ninja. If you didn't, contact me!
There WERE a few problems with communication, however. In the
typical hacker style, several people bought CB radios from Radio Shack--to be
returned on Monday. Some people had 2-meter rigs. Everyone (except me) had
FM car stereos. Unfortunately, no one had both a 2-meter radio AND a CB.
Because our broadcast engineer was supposed to work late on Friday, drop
out of the caravan, and fly to Vegas, the high-power transmitter was never
finished and our J-pole antenna was never constructed. At the last minute,
though, he got the night off of work--so we had to get a Ramsey transmitter
kit, construct it, and use it. (For those that don't know...the Ramsey
FM x-mitter is based around a low-audio-quality chip, has some funky
idiosynchroncies, and is very low power). I'm not even sure that the
transmission was able to leave the transmitting truck--as it had no real
power and no real antenna.
Prof. Feedlebom with the Ramsey FM-10 transmitter
 |
Security did not seem to like anyone. "Haxors" took white curtsey phone
handsets AND the phones themselves! As we arrived to the hotel, several
people were being booted out of the hotel for shining a laser pointer out
of their window. (Is it illegal to use a glorified flashlight???)
| By the way: | |||||||
When you are in your hotel room, do not take off your phone jack's
cover plate. Do not notice that there is no security there. Do not see
that there are other rooms' twisted pairs running behind your cover plate
(This is a fairly new hotel! Don't they know about stuff like phone
security?). Do not splice into someone else's phone pair. Do not make
fradulent calls, as they will cost your neighbors (or the hotel) about $5.00
each for a quick call (like to dial a pager). Well....I guess it doesn't
cost the hotel $5.00, but that's what they charge after tax, licensing,
options, and dealer prep. | |||||||
To be continued...I'm going to bed...
