I saw a Bird

I was trying to come up with a clever title for my post today but I haven't had my coffee yet so this is the best I could do.  I don't get to see a lot of tv but since I finally got an entire weekend without work I got to catch a few things.  For some reason I found myself watching a lot of History and Military Channel shows.  I watched 2 documentaries.  One was called X-Day which was about the planned invasion of Japan to end the war.  The second was called Galipoli which was about the battle of Galipoli between the English and the Turks during the first world war.  What stood out to me about the first documentary was the amount of civilian casualties that were inflicted on the Japanese near the end of the war.  The numbers were into the 100's of thousands.  I know that this was a different time and a terrible war.  The commander of the US bombing campaign had a quote that stood out to me "War is simple.  You kill the enemy as much as you can until he stops fighting you".  That was the strategy in a nutshell.  The war in Europe didn't officially end until Berlin fell so it was thought that the war in the Pacific would not end until Tokyo fell.  Another statistic I didn't know was that Tokyo was 80% destroyed by the end of the war due to constant bombing by the US.  The battle for Okinawa was the first time the US had fought the Japanese on their own land.  The US and specifically the Navy noted the fighting was much more intense and casualties were far higher than expected.  Because of that battle the Navy withdrew their support for an invasion of mainland Japan.  Losses on the US side were estimated to have been in the 200,000 range.  When I see things like this I wonder if leaders of countries ever fully realize the horror that they are sending their young men into.  Even if a war is completely justified and the public is overwhelmingly behind the effort, I can't imagine any president with a soul being able to sleep well at night.  There was a war movie a few years back starring Tom Selek were he played Dwight Eisenhower.  It depicted Ike and his staff during the preplanning stages of D-Day.  At one point he is told that certain divisions were expected to lose 70-80%.  He agreed to meet with these men just prior to their departure.  I believe this actually happened.  How did he do that?  How did he look into the face of a young man of maybe 18 or 19 years of age and order him on to almost certain death?  I know the answer is that his counterpart on the other side of the red line is willing to do the same thing.  If he were to lose his nerve and refuse to order his men onto those beaches, the war would likely have been lost.  Is that war?  Old men in a contest of wills; sacrificing men's lives and souls like so many chess pieces.  For what?  The common good?  I hope so.

I saw a bird today

Late Night Lineup

So as some of you may know we moved out of our old building in Venice and are now being housed temporarily across the street in what is usually the features area.  It's a bit cramped but they tell us that we will be moving to a much nicer facility in Playa Del Rey in the fall.  That should be nice.  It's a little after 11pm and I'm still here because we have a posting tomorrow.  It would sure help if I didn't have to drive an hour to get home.  Tomorrow's drive in is going to be brutal too.  Because I'll be leaving late it will take at least 1.5 hours.  I actually have an even harder time staying awake on those drives in than I do these late nights that I go home.  Something about sitting in traffic makes me want to fall asleep.  Probably not a good thing. 

Got in a good 6 mile run this morning.  Seems like the tide has shifted back to were it is low tide in the morning again.  Maybe I'll try out bare foot running again.  Just have to avoid the glass.

Our new temporary home.  That's my desk on the right.

Thursday

Still here....at least I got to run today.

Really big waves off of Venice today.  I picked a good day to not wear headphones.

first posting

Tough day today.  It started out pretty good considering I got almost everything I wanted to render done last night.  Then I found out that part of my team wasn't on the same page as the other part and yada yada yada, things got fouled up.  We ended up sending something to the client tonight that was not quite up to par with what we would like, but the overall look was there.  Not a total disaster.

The bike ride this morning was nice.  There was a slight breeze which can be a killer when you are going against it.  There was a bit of a crowd at the pull up bars so I passed on those today.

I am slowly figuring out what the different members of my team are good at.  An important step I think.  Too bad it is happening with just 2 weeks to go.

a lifeguard tower at Will Rogers State beach

Productive Day

It always feels good to have a productive day.  Today my team has been burning through the work like crazy.  I feel good that I have been able to stay ahead of them and constantly feed them work to do.  This nice compared to the alternative of giving somebody something to do and not seeing any progress for a day or two.  Especially on something that I would think should take a few hours this can be most annoying. 

Had a good run this morning.  It took me an extra long time to get out the door because I felt like I had too much work to do.  They aren't going to pay me for the extra hours yet so if I stayed I be working for free.  It always feels good to run after a long mental battle like that.  Getting out the door is always the hardest part.  Running is the fun part.

Docweiller Beach around 8am.

8 mile escape

I ran 8 miles this morning.  That is the longest I have run since the marathon.  Felt pretty good, although it did feel like it took forever.  Really foggy this morning.  That was weird considering the last two days have been so hot.  By lunch time it still hadn't burned off.  The tide was low so I got to run on the beach.  Weird how it is usually high now.  Seems like about a year ago it started being high tide in the morning when I run. 

I like it when it gets foggy like this.  The pier emerges out of the mist like a ghost ship in the sand.