Amtrak Surfliner Trip to San Diego

This last weekend we traveled down to San Diego, instead of choosing to cram into a car and sit in traffic on I-5, we took Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner, it was fun, relaxing, and not too expensive (about $60 round trip per person). I would definitely do it again, we enjoyed some cheese and crackers that we brought along with us (mmmmm.... brie cheese) and bought some wine and beer from the cafe car to go with it. We picked the train up at Chatsworth station and it was a pretty 3 1/2 hour ride into San diego along the coast. I really like the train and I'm going to have to consider it for more of my trips, perhaps take it up north the next time I go.

Free AJAX Web Chat

Conversive, Inc. (where I work as a Sr. S/W Engineer in Malibu), is a leading provider of Customer Self-Service Solutions.We've just released the Beta of our newest application: Conversive Chat, which is an AJAX-enabled Web Chat system that is easy to setup and add to your site. It's ideal for providing live, web-based customer service, but you can use it for anything you want. It even includes an FAQ manager that can learn FAQs based on your conversation. Try it out and let us know what you think!



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A Great Day

The last day of the first month of 2007 will be a day long remembered for me, because it was my big day in court for my third traffic ticket within a year. The theme of 2006 was my propensity to get traffic tickets in Los Angeles; I got three moving violations: the first two were within a week of each other in January of 2006 when I was in the process of moving out of my apartment and into my current place, and the final one was a California rolling stop I was sited for late one early October evening.

Well, I was really dreading my court date and was pretty sure I would get the point on my driving record because I'd already taken traffic school for the two previous tickets. In L.A. (perhaps also in other areas) they allow you to take a 12 hour, in-person traffic school (also called "Second-chance" traffic school) if you have a second ticket within 18 months and you request it. Anyways, it turns out that the officer who cited me didn't show up for my trial and I was sectioned off with about three other people who's cases were dismissed for that reason, then they told us our bail money would be refunded and let us go! Oh my god! What a relief, this is enough for me to become religious! I have been driving super carefully, I obey all traffic laws and posted speed limits, and I will continue to do so - as long as I can. If you are driving on Mulholland or Las Virgenes / Malibu Canyon Road and get stuck behind a Corolla that is going at or under the speed limit, give me some room and enjoy the scenery, I'm just going to keep obeying the speed limits.

Thank you God, Allah, almighty, Karma, or whatever is responsible for this wonderful day!