A friend of mine sent me this story. You can read the story here and I've attached an interview. Basically, a decorated Navy SEAL chased down some young punks who had shot and killed his dog. A dog that was given to him for emotional therapy after he was the only survivor of his SEAL team from Afghanistan. A dog he named after his fallen comrades.

People who randomly kill animals just for the hell of it need to be removed from society. In my opinion, they're only one small step away from killing people. It takes a truly twisted mind to revel in the death of another living being. And for any hunters reading this, I don't mean you. Though I don't hunt, I understand that hunting is something totally different than what these punks did. Outdoorsmen are one thing, psychopaths are another.

I'm constantly amazed at why Segway gets so much publicity. They introduced their latest invention, the P.U.M.A., a collaboration with GM. It's basically a Segway with beefed up performance, two seats, and a windshield. I'm sure it's an amazing feat of engineering and that very intelligent people got together to build a very complex "thing". But the point here is who will use this? I remember when the Segway PT came out 8 years ago with much fanfare and hype. Fast forward to today, the only Segway PTs I see are at the Segway rental shop next to a pho restaurant in East Oakland (perfect location!). It seems that people got enamored with technology without making it functional. Just because we have the ability to build it, doesn't mean we should. Also, great to know that GM is involved. Obviously, they have nothing better to do, right?

Back when I worked in SF, I used to attend a lot of San Francisco Giants games. I worked in SOMA and used to take a few hours off to see the afternoon games or head to the park straight from work for the evening games. Then I left the working world to do the start-up thing (ie, no time and no money), the Giants started to go down hill post-Bonds, and the invention of the Slingbox have made for a confluence of excuses not to attend live games. Today's game should give a lot of Giants fans hope for this year. A ton of good, young, home grown players alongside some decent veterans might make this the best Giants team we've seen in at least 5 years. It's hard to tell from my Slingbox screenshot but that's a 100mph fastball from Brian Wilson to end the game. Not sure I get his pharaoh's end of game pose though.

So the wife and I were helping our friends Rich and Melinda of Stage Left Cellars yesterday during the 2nd Annual Passport to the East Bay Wine Trail organized by the East Bay Vintner's Alliance. We had a great time being on the other side of the table and met hundreds of really interesting folks on the tour. Stage Left Cellars is new to Oakland having moved up from Paso Robles in January and joins a ton of great wineries right here in Oakland and the neighboring cities of Berkeley, Alameda, and Emeryville. It's great to know there's a thriving community of small independent wine makers within 10 miles of us and we'll absolutely support them in the future. Thanks again to Rich and Melinda for letting us take part in the event!

Doing some work on the balcony today. It's a really nice day to be outside (especially with my balcony mate). We were hanging out with Rich and Melinda yesterday and they were remarking how it snowed in Seattle a few days ago. I guess we're pretty spoiled here in Oakland this time of year.