Before i accidentally drowned my Sony Ericsson K608i, i used to be able to send SMS using OS X’s Address Book via bluetooth. It appears, quite surprisingly to me, that this feature is not supported in iPhone. When iPhone was activated for the first time, it was automatically paired up with the bluetooth-enabled Mac. I thought may be the iPhone did not pair up correctly so i removed the device configuration from my Powerbook. I then proceeded to manually pair up iPhone with my Powerbook but the last screen from the Bluetooth Mobile Phone Set Up gave a warning that “There were no supported services found on your device”.
Then i went to Address Book to try to pair it up with iPhone, so that i could send a SMS using from my Powerbook. When i clicked on the bluetooth icon in Address Book, it brought up a “Pair with a Bluetooth Device” window. Pairing up again with my iPhone did not help.
Right now, it is also not possible to use the “Browse Device” function from OS X to browse the content of iPhone.
Update 2007/07/01:
iPhone Central at MacWorld has an article on this.
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15 cans of Friskies salmon-flavored cat food as shrimp bait: $7.39
1 Shell fishing license for the State of Washington: $10.95
2 rolls of 5/16 leaded 400-ft rope: $40
1 Garmin GPS 72 handheld GPS navigator for shrimping coordinates: $107.74
2 Ladner nestible shrimp pots: $131.90
1 4-hour 11.5′ Livingston motor boat rental from Hood Canal Kayak: $150
Driving more than 4 hours between Seattle and Union, boating up and down the Hood Canal for more than 4 hours, pulling up by hand (without a pot puller) more than 1800-ft of ropes with dangling shrimp pots weighing anywhere from 10 lbs to 20 lbs while catching only one f@#ing spot shrimp by the end of the day as well as soaking a Sony Ericsson K608i cell phone: Priceless
About 4 weekends ago, i had the misfortune of having to cook one of the best tasting shrimps ever: the spot shrimps. I bought more than 2 lbs of live spot shrimps from Mutual Fish and with shrimps that fresh, some Chinese rice wine and minced ginger were all i added prior to steaming them. About a week later, i came across an article in the Seattle Times about “Shrimpin’ on Hood Canal“. One of the first few things i did immediately after reading the article was to find out if shrimping was still allowed in the nearby area (according to the author of the article, the day that she went shrimping on Hood Canal was the last day of the shrimping season there). From the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife website, i found out that due to the shrimping limit not being reached, recreational shrimping in Marine Area 12 (aka Hood Canal) was going to be extended for another day: June 23rd.
After doing some significant research (apparently, as i would find out later, this “significant” research that i did was apparently insufficient), i tracked down what i needed for shrimping:
- a valid shell fishing license
- a boat
- some shrimp pots
- at least 400′ of rope per pot
- a pot puller
- at least a buoy per pot
- a bait cage/bag per pot
- some shrimp bait
Getting the shell fishing license was the easiest part. I have been getting the shell fishing license for almost every year since i moved to Seattle close to 5 years ago, so i know exactly where, what and how to get it: Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife website.
Finding out where i could rent a boat took me quite a bit more time that i anticipated. I first tried to contact via email the author of the Seattle Times article to determine if the folks from the Hama Hama Oyster company that took her out shrimping would provide the same service to some shrimping newbies. She never wrote back. So i called Hama Hama Oyster company and was informed that they only took her out because she was a close friend. So i scratched that off the list. On searching for boat rental/charter on google, i found a few hits. None of the boat charter businesses that i contacted provide any shrimping boat rental/charter. Eventually, i managed to find two boat rental places: one in Hoodsport called Rest-A-While RV Park and another one in Union called Hood Canal Kayak. Originally, i wanted to go with Rest-A-While since it is located right where i was suggested to drop the shrimp pots. But Hood Canal Kayak has a better boat rental rate. Instead of paying $250 for a full day rental (i only needed 4 hours since WDFW was only allowing shrimping to be done between 0900 and 1300 on 6/23), i only have to pay $150 at Hood Canal Kayak.
At the same time i was searching for a boat rental business, i was also trying to determine where i could get all the shrimping equipment in Seattle. Since it’s already at the very tail end of the recreational shrimping season in Washington, quite a few stores had sold out on items like shrimp pots and bait cages. This would be my first time shrimping so initially, i did not see any reason to buy shrimp pots. Furthermore, i have absolutely no space at home to store any 30″ shrimp pots. I found a shrimping/crabbing business in Brinnon (about 4o miles north of Union) that was willing to rent shrimp pots. I did not feel like driving a round trip of more than 80 miles just to pick up the shrimp pots and then another 80 to return them, and after discussing with Janet (she would be my only shrimping partner), i decided to buy them. Since i was out of town in Rhode Island the whole week and would not return in time to buy the shrimping equipment, Janet was kind enough to get most of them from Seattle Marine and Fishing Supply Co.
I was concerned about navigating the Hood Canal so i got myself a Garmin GPS 72 handheld GPS navigator. This is probably the most basic model of handheld GPS navigator made by Garmin. It would be nice if the GPS 72 comes with topographic maps but since i only needed a tool to tell me how to get to some designated waypoints, i didn’t think it was necessary to pay more for other fancier features. In addition, the GPS 72 is designed with marine use in mind. If you accidentally drop the GPS 72 in the water, it will simply float.
I got up on 6/23 at around 0600 in the morning, having slept for no more than 4 hours since i was busy getting things ready for the shrimping trip the previous night. For the trip from Seattle to Union, i drove south on I-5 until i reached Olympia and then northwest on highway 101 before going east on highway 106. It was a pleasant drive that took less than 2 hours. Hood Canal Kayak has two locations in Union and i was told to pick up my rental boat at the Alderbrook Resort. After loading all the shrimping equipment onto the 11.5 ft boat and getting some basic instructions on how to operate the motor, Janet and i headed off toward Hoodsport.
It was a sunny but cloudy morning when we left the dock at the Alderbrook Resort. The water was calm and it was not windy at all - the weather forecast had called for 15 MPH wind. My original plan was to head to the water east of Hoodsport to drop our shrimp pots but when we spotted a few boats dropping pots south of Hoodsport, we decided to drop some shrimp pots near them. Darker clouds were gathering and it was getting a little bit windier. After loading the first shrimp pot with three cans of cat food and tying the pot to one end of the 400 ft roll of rope with an anchor hitch (which i learned the previous evening) and tying the yellow buoy to the other end with a stopper knot, we started to drop the pot into the water.
Immediately, i realized a problem. Because the shrimp pot was weighing no more than 6 lbs, the strong current was causing the pot to drift south. Without any depth finder, there was no way for us to figure out the water depth. Even when we had almost completely rolled out 400 ft of rope, there was still a strong tug on the rope. We were really concerned that if we let the rope go, we would have to kiss our shrimp pots good bye. When another shrimp boat came close to us, i asked the crew for the water depth: 360 ft. As much concern as we had in the shrimp pot dragging the buoy down, we let the first pot go. A few minutes later, we released the second pot.
As soon as they were released, they started drifting south. I knew immediately that it was impossible to catch any shrimp with the shrimp pots drifting and possibly not even touching the bottom. So we gave chase to the buoys and started to pull them out of the water. It was relatively easy to pull the first 100 ft but it began to feel a lot heavier soon after. It was then we realized that somehow the ropes for the two shrimp pots got tangled up. Naturally, as i had expected, both pots did not contain any shrimp.
After moving the boat to a group of boats shrimping in the water further south, we asked the people on one of the boats for the recommended weight on the shrimp pots. We were told that the shrimp pots should weigh probably 20 lbs or more. Without anything on the boat that would allow us to add additional weights to the shrimp pots, i decided to steer the boat to the eastern shore of Hood Canal to pick up some rocks on the beach. I picked up 6 rocks weighing from 5 to 10 lbs from what i thought was a private beach. Getting back to the boat was not as easy as i thought. I had to make sure that the boat was in a relatively safe distance from a huge under water rock and that the water was deep enough to start the motor up. I didn’t realize at that moment that i had my Sony Ericsson K608i in my pants pocket. I can tell you now that the K608i is not waterproof. Soaking it in seawater rendered it completely unusable. Anyway, in the first pot, i placed a 5-lb rock wrapped in old t-shirt (i didn’t want to take any chance for the rock to do any damage to the net on the pot). It was obvious after dropping the shrimp pot into the water that even with the added weight, the shrimp pot was still too light. For the second pot, i added two heavier rocks, again wrapped in old t-shirts. The heavier pot seemed to drift less than the lighter pot.
Next, we chased after the lighter pot, with the goal of pulling it up and adding a second rock. By this time, the added rock in the pot was making it quite a bit harder to pull. The pot puller that Janet bought could not be mounted onto the boat so we (mainly me) were pulling by hand. The current, which was causing the pot to drift south, was requiring extra effort be exerted in pulling the pot. When i finally pulled the pot onto the boat, to our utter amazement, there was a big spot shrimp in the pot!!! I have absolutely no freaking idea how the spot shrimp managed to get into our shrimp pot since it had been drifting from where we dropped it.
(The only spot shrimp that we caught. Amazingly, it was not crushed by the T-shirt-wrapped rock.)
After putting the shrimp in a bucket, i quickly added a second rock to the pot and proceeded to drop it. After dropping about 200 ft of rope, i realized that we simply did not have enough time. By this time, it was close to 1230. All the shrimp pots must be pulled out of the water by 1300 and also, we had to return our boat by 1300. So the decision was made to pull the pot up. By now, it was getting quite difficult to pull the pot up, even wearing my gloves. I had to take a break after about 15-20 pulls. Eventually, after much work, we brought the pot onto the boat.
Next, we went after the second pot. I was not looking forward to pulling that pot up at all because that pot was loaded with two of the heaviest rocks. With much grunting, screaming and yelling, and with plenty of breaks in between 10 pulls or so, i managed to pull about 300 ft of rope. While i was resting my sore fingers, i suggested to Janet that we should both pull the pot at the same time. It was definitely easier pulling it up by two persons and by the time we pulled the pot out of the water, i realized close to 20 minutes had gone. I think it took us another 20 minutes to get the boat back to the dock. The trip back to the dock was done without the help of the Garmin GPS 72 since i could not remember the name of the waypoint in which i had saved the dock coordinates!
After taking a quick shower at the resort, we stopped by a roadside BBQ stand for some pretty good BBQ. I had a BBQ pork sandwich while Janet had 1/2 a pound of ribs.
I learned the following lessons, some of them the hard way, in my first ever shrimping trip:
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I was wondering why the leaves of one of my Tillandsia plant were turning red. Turned out, it was just getting ready to flower.
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Saw this tiny mouse in my backyard. There may be more than one but the one i saw seems to have taken a home under the big pot of sweet bay tree.
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(image taken on a Sony Ericsson K608i camera phone)
That’s how much gas that was left in my rental SUV as i pulled into the Hertz return lot near Boston’s Logan International airport. The empty gas tank lamp started to illuminate about 25 miles from the airport.
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Update 2008/05/23
From Fox Sports on MSN, regarding the AL-worst 18-31 Mariners:
“Playing on this team and seeing what’s happening around me, I feel that something is beginning to fall apart,” Suzuki said through a translator. “But, if I was not in the situation and I was objectively watching what had happened to this team in the past week, I would probably be drinking a lot of beers and brewing it.”
What kind of beer?
“Usually I enjoy Japanese beer, but given the situation, if I was objectively watching the game, I wouldn’t care if it was Japanese beer, American beer or beer from Papua New Guinea,” he said.
From usatoday.com:
On performance-enhancing drugs: “When you take steroids, it’s not as if wings grow out of your back, and you start flying all over the place and stealing home runs (from hitters). The word ‘cheating’ doesn’t apply for me regarding steroids.”
Being an entertainer: “I want to be the kind of player who people feel it is worth paying the money to come out and watch. … When I meet players who are playing just to win, that angers me.”
Pete Rose: “No one can deny his 4,000-plus hits. The gambling thing is something different. … On the front of his Hall of Fame plaque they should put all of his records and amazing feats. When you flip it over, it should say, ‘He gambled on baseball.’ But I would vote for him.”
Tiger Woods’ athleticism: “Tiger is a great golfer, but … when you say athlete, I think of Carl Lewis. When you talk about (golfers or race-car drivers), I don’t want to see them run. It’s the same if you were to meet a beautiful girl and go bowling. If she’s an ugly bowler, you are going to be disappointed.”
“It’s a weakness to try to show yourself to be more than you actually are. To me, it’s cooler to hide yourself, even if you’re better than that,” Ichiro says. “That’s a big difference between Japanese and American cultures. Sometimes, (Americans) try to make themselves out to be bigger than they are.”
“The majority of people in the clubhouse make fun of my clothing - but I make fun of their clothes 100 times more,” he says, with an animated laugh.
“Anytime they say they like my stuff, that’s when I start to worry. When they make fun of it, I think, ‘OK, I actually look good today.’ “
From Tim Brown at Yahoo! Sports:
On the then-slumping Mariners’ prospects of improvement: “If there is a problem, we need to notice what creates the problem. The problem usually isn’t just on the cover. You need to look much deeper. For example, if we’re talking about a tree and the tree has a problem, you need to look at the root. But you cannot see the root. The mistake is to keep watering the fruit. That’s not going to solve anything.”
On losing a fly ball in the flint-gray Anaheim sky: “The ball became the same color as the sky. So, I wasn’t able to see it. … I was sending mental signals for the ball not to come my way, because during that time of day it’s impossible for me to see the ball, so I lacked mental signals. I lacked in that area. … Usually, I don’t send mental signals. So, because this is the first time, I thought, ‘Please don’t come my way.’”
On making up yet another game in Cleveland last night, to the Seattle Times: “To tell the truth, I’m not excited to go to Cleveland, but we have to. If I ever saw myself saying I’m excited going to Cleveland, I’d punch myself in the face, because I’m lying.”
From the Seattle Post Intelligencer:
On raising his batting average from 0.192 to .290 after going 4 for 5 including a home run: “Yesterday, I ate two ice creams,” he said through an interpreter. “Usually I only eat one.”
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Jerk #1: Andrew Speaker. He was fully aware that he has a drug resistant form of TB and yet willing to risk the health of everyone else by traveling to Europe for his honeymoon. Even when notified that his TB was highly resistant to drugs and was told not to travel on commercial airlines, he decided to sneak back to the US via a commercial aircraft to Montreal and drove the rest of the way back. Even when being exposed as such a selfish and thoughtless jerk that he is, he tried to hit back at his critics by explaining his reason for speaking out was his concern about his law career:
“When I’m done with all this, am I going to have a practice to get back to, with the impression out there now that I’m this selfish, self-absorbed person? It’s not how I’ve lived my life. When I’m done with all this, I want to make sure I still have my life to get back to.”
It may not be how he has lived his life but this self-absorbing piece of shit knowingly risked transmitting his drug-resistant TB to all those around him does not deserve to have his practice to go back to. In fact, he does not deserve to have his life to get back to.
Jerk #2: Ted Speaker, Andres Speaker’s father. He was extremely combative with health officials when they tried to prevent his son from going to Europe for his honeymoon. When asked for the whereabout of Andrew, he refused to divulge the location of his son.
Jerk #3: Robert Cooksey. Being a microbiologist at CDC with focus on contagious diseases like TB, not only refused to stop the Greek wedding but went to the ceremony himself.
Jerk #4: Sarah Speaker, the newly wed wife of Andrew Speaker. Knowing that Andrew has a drug resistant form of TB and yet decided to go to Europe with her fiancee. Worse, even when she found out that his TB is highly drug resistant, she conspired with him to sneak back into the US, traveling on commercial aircraft, potentially affecting more passengers.
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My return trip from Providence to Seattle last week took two days. I was supposed to leave Providence on a Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit at around 1600 EDT Friday. By the time i got home, it was close to 1030 PDT on Saturday. Because of a strong storm system around the upper Midwest part of the country and the “cascading computer failure in the nation’s air-traffic control system” on Friday, my Detroit bound flight departure was delayed until 1821. If i had taken this flight, i would have missed the last connecting flight to Seattle out of Detroit. Knowing that Minneapolis has a later connecting flight to Seattle, i decided to change my flight to Minneapolis. Even though the Minneapolis flight (flight 615) was delayed as well, i figured that i had plenty of time to spare. The inbound Minneapolis flight arrived around 1800 and because NWA operates only one gate at the Providence airport, it had to wait for the flight to Detroit to depart first. So i waited. 1830, all the passengers from inbound flight 615 had left the plane. 1900, nothing. 1930 nothing. Finally at around 2000, they finally started boarding flight 615. Because of the severe storm, the flight 615 did not get permission to take off. The plane sat on the tarmac for another 2 hours. So i did not arrive in Minneapolis until 0030 Saturday. I was put on the 0800 flight so i spent the night at the nearby Embassy Suite.
As a frequent traveler, i understand the delay caused by weather. It’s mother nature and it’s unavoidable. But i have a big problem with how the NWA ground crew at the Providence airport had handled this delay. While everyone waited to find out why they were not allowed to board flight 615, the crew made absolutely no announcement. The electronic display board at the gate still indicated the way past departure time. It would be nice to know what’s causing the delay and the estimated new departure time but crew provided neither.
And this is not the first time i had problem with this crew. On my first return trip from Providence, i was a little late getting to the airport. As i waited at the First Class/Elite line, i noticed that no one was serving that line. The lady who was supposed to be working on that counter was busy chatting with another customer. I said “chatting” because that was exactly what she was doing. I walked right in front of the First class/elite counter and stared at her. During the next few minutes, she completely ignored me. She had to know my presence because i was standing barely 3 feet from her. Finally, i had to remind her that i was in a hurry to catch my flight to get her attention. I have been leaving Providence every Thursday or Friday the past few weeks and not once, i repeat, not once have i seen anyone working in front of the First class/Elite counter. What’s the point of having the counter there when apparently no one is working behind it?
Another problem i have is with the Providence airport. At most airports, TSA runs the checked-in bags through x-ray scanners behind the counters. But at the Providence airport, when you are checking in your bag, you are not really checking in your bag. After the airline crew put the claim tag on your bag, you have to drag it to an x-ray scanner manned by the slowest TSA personnels that i have ever witnessed. Worse, you can’t just drop your bag off at the x-ray scanner and leave. You have to drop it in front of the scanner and then wait at the other end for it to come out before you can leave for the security gate. What’s the point of doing that? Two weeks ago, i waited probably at least 5 minutes for my bag to emerge from the x-ray scanner and there were only two other passengers in front of me. I was really going to let the TSA personnels know how i felt about their service when the lady behind me did just that.
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