Tonya and PQBON's WebLog
It was amazing that we got this picture. Katie, Oma, and I went to Valley Fair Mall today to see the Easter Bunny. Luckily, there were no other kids waiting to see the bunny so she got to take her time to warm up to her. At first, we just said Hi to the bunny and waved. Then we asked her where the bunnies toes were and could she pat the bunny. Then I sat next to the bunny with her but she wanted down immediately. We had to start all over many times. She would run away but I'd ask her where the bunny was and she'd go back. The bunny stood up and hopped a couple times for her, which she thought was so funny. So if you ask her what a bunny does she says "hop,hop,hop" Eventually, we got her to sit next to the bunny for all of 30 seconds and got 2 pictures. I'm standing right next to her but thankfully not in the picture, unlike our santa picture which ended up being a family picture.
I have made a few changes to our blog. Nothing big...
That is all.
My new Mac Book Pro has a mere 100GBs of highspeed drive goodness and my families music collection is going on 40GBs (my music, Tonya's music, and Katie's music (**yes my 1 year old has a CD collection and an MP3 collection**)). I don't want to give up almost half of my harddrive to music nor do I want to give up music when I'm not at home. My solution: a pared down notebook music collection. It made me think long and hard about what music I actually want to listen and what I do listen to...
Hopefully this will be enough for me when I'm not at home and don't want to use my iPod photo...
I finally broke down and bought a new computer. I stopped processing photos because I didn't have a good computer to do it on. I stopped playing games because I didn't have a good computer to do it on. To fix this problem I ordered a Mac Book Pro 17" with 3GBs of memory and a 100GB 7200RPM hard drive.
I'm going to use it for everything but I bought it specifically for photo developing/editing. For photography I plan on using Adobe LightRoom and Adobe Photoshop CS3. This notebook is going to drive my Canon i9900 printer and Canon 9950F scanner. Also it will be the machine that hosts my Wacom 9x12. This should make for a great photo platform.
For those wondering why I got the 17"... Well I wanted the Mac Book or the Mac Pro. I didn't get the pro because I don't like having to sit at my desk at home to use a computer. I didn't get the Mac Book because I didn't want the integrated graphics and I wanted the back-lit keys and the matte finish. Don't get me wrong I love the glossy screen, I have it on my Dell 700m.However, the glossy screens don't reproduce color as accurately and I'm trying to get a truly great accurate setup for photography. Also the 700m has the same size screen (more or less) ant it proved too small for photography. I loved it for websurfing, email, even games were pretty good but photoshop and lightroom just didn't work. So then I was going to get the 15". I loved my old 15" Ti PowerBook - part of me died when I had to return it to NetApp when I left for Intel. Everything was great, I was going to get a fully loaded 15" Mac Book Pro... that is until I noticed two things about the 17": 1) I could get the 100GB 7200RPM drive as apposed to the 120GB or 160GB 5400RPM drive. 2) The native resolution was the same as my 20" wide screen flat panel (I hate flipping back and forth between two display with differing resolutions it screws up my window size and placement. I was then in agony. That is until my beautiful wife told me what to do... She pointed out that 90% of the time I use my notebook at home, either at my desk, on the couch, or in bed after she is asleep. She pointed out the 17" was only slightly bigger and less then a pound heaver then the 15" and I really should just get the 17" and stop being a dumbass.
I spent last night unboxing and setting up my new Mac Book Pro, the second one in two days (After I ordered my machine with a custom configuration from Apple, I took my mom to the apple store where she picked out her own 17" Mac Book Pro, I spent most of the weekend setting it up for her). Last night I installed: Emacs, Fink, Ethereal, XCode, StuffIt Expander, Flickr Uploader, Flickr iPhoto export, 1001 by kungfu.tv, Firefox, X11, driver for my Wacom tablet and Canon Printer and Scanner and Camera, Microsoft Remote Desktop, Microsoft Media Services for Quicktime, DivX, Microsoft Media Player v. 9, Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Acrobat reader... and a few other things I can't remember right now.
So what does this mean... Well for one thing, it means I have a Mac again... For the other, it means that the 20GBs worth of unprocessed raw images I have sitting on my server will be processed as I get around to getting the software. This means you can expect a metric ton of Flickr spooge as soon as CS3 ships.
Don't worry she wasn't hurt at all. She had been doing this all day long and I finally started recording it when she fell. Here is video of her not falling off the coffee table. When I realized she was fine, I thought it was HILARIOUS......I'm still chuckling to myself.
Danger shouldn't stop journalists, newswoman says - Yahoo! News
Fox News chairman/CEO Roger Ailes received the First Amendment Leadership Award for, among other things, his tireless efforts to save correspondent Steve Centanni and cameraman Olaf Wiig last August after they were kidnapped in Gaza. Centanni was on hand to present the award to Ailes and said he and Wiig owed their lives to Ailes behind-the-scenes, around-the-clock efforts that included Ailes' willingness to even go to Gaza.
All I have to say is: "AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Katie at the park playing in the playground... You may note that she is walking in sand around/on playground equipment!
Her first pigtails... and the results of her feeding herself. ** Note the food on her face and person. **
She is a little ham when her mommy takes out the camera. Also note the new hair style.
She ate a piece of cake for her birthday all by herself. She did a pretty good job for someone who has never had a piece of cake to herself before.
She can already text faster then I can. Her spelling is better too!
She loves to go through her board books to find: Cats!!!, dogs, fish, and birds.
She loves cats... Be they stuffed, living, or the tiger at the zoo.
Oh yeah, she loves to climb. Be it stairs, chairs, the couch, or a park bench she wants to go up it.
Just in case you forgot how much she has changed in one year.
This repo man drives off with ocean freighters
NEW ORLEANS -- If repossessing a used Chevrolet can be tricky, consider retrieving the Aztec Express, a 700-foot cargo ship under guard in Haiti as civil unrest spread through the country.
Only a few repo men possess the guile and resourcefulness for such a job. One of them is F. Max Hardberger, of Lacombe, La. Since 1991, the 58-year-old attorney and ship captain has surreptitiously sailed away about a dozen freighters from ports around the world.
Maybe I'm crazy but this sounds like a very cool albeit dangerous job!
This repo man drives off with ocean freighters
It's a rare specialty that can be dangerous, given parts of the world in which he must operate.
NEW ORLEANS -- If repossessing a used Chevrolet can be tricky, consider retrieving the Aztec Express, a 700-foot cargo ship under guard in Haiti as civil unrest spread through the country.
Only a few repo men possess the guile and resourcefulness for such a job. One of them is F. Max Hardberger, of Lacombe, La. Since 1991, the 58-year-old attorney and ship captain has surreptitiously sailed away about a dozen freighters from ports around the world.
"I'm sure there are those who would like to add me to a list of modern pirates of the Caribbean, but I do whatever I can to protect the legal rights of my clients," said Hardberger, whose company, Vessel Extractions in New Orleans, has negotiated the releases of another dozen cargo ships and prevented the seizures of many others.
His line of work regularly takes him to a corner of the maritime industry still plagued by pirates, underhanded business practices and corrupt government officials, waters the Aztec Express sailed right into.
The saga began in 2003 when the vessel's Greek owner died and his company did not keep up payments on a $3.3-million mortgage.
Bahamian court records show that an American businessman who had used the vessel to haul 235 used cars from the northeastern United States to Haiti did not pay the charter fee, contributing to the loan default.
Once the ship arrived in the Haitian port of Miragoane, the businessman bribed judicial officials to seize the vessel and sell it to him in a rigged auction, according to court records.
Meanwhile, a violent rebellion threatened to topple President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, making it impossible for the lender or the owner's relatives to contest the sale.
The condition of the Aztec Express further complicated matters. Its main engines were out of commission, having been idle and untended for months.
Hardberger was hired by the New Jersey-based mortgage holder. He flew to Haiti and drove with an armed bodyguard to Miragoane.
He gathered two important pieces of information. Watchmen stationed on the Aztec Express sold fuel from the vessel on the black market. Second, port authorities had a cellphone, but they could use it only at the harbor's soccer field, where cellular service was reliable.
Hardberger managed to get the guards off the ship by offering to buy fuel. When they came down to the dock to discuss the transaction, off-duty Haitian riot police hired by Hardberger held them at bay.
MEANWHILE, an oceangoing tugboat also hired by Hardberger slipped into port and backed up to the Aztec Express. Under a full moon, the crew began cutting the anchor chains with blowtorches.
In case harbor officials noticed and tried to call for help on their cellphone, Hardberger had paid a witch doctor $100 to cast spells on the port's soccer field. The witch doctor marked the field with gray powder, a clear warning to believers in voodoo, the nation's dominant religion. No call ever went out.
Once the freighter was freed, the tug hauled the ship out of port and headed for the Bahamas, where British-based maritime laws give a high priority to lenders' claims.
The next day, however, another tug intercepted the ship. Its captain said he had been sent to take over the operation.
Hardberger's team checked with the marine towing company hired for the repossession and found that no relief boat had been sent. It then summoned the Bahamian coast guard, which detained the other tug on suspicion of attempted piracy.
Hardberger said the second tugboat had been sent by the American businessman when he learned that the Aztec Express had been pulled out of Haiti.
In the Bahamas, a court upheld the ship's repossession and ordered its sale to settle the lender's claim.
"Haiti has a corrupt legal system where cronyism and corruption are the order of the day," Judge John Lyons wrote in his decision. "Justice is dispensed according to who can pay the going rate."
Hardberger said small-to-medium-size cargo ships such as the Aztec Express are among the most vulnerable to chicanery and illegal seizures.
Often operated by small shipping lines, these modern-day tramp steamers regularly visit developing countries plagued by unstable and corrupt governments.
In the worst-off nations, Hardberger said, it is possible to seize a $10-million ship with a $100 bribe to a justice of the peace.
"You need more than what an attorney can do in some of these countries," said John Lightbown, a ship owner who recently sought Hardberger's help to avert a seizure in Haiti.
"Deals can be bought and sold under the table. Max gets into the middle of things. He's been around the block," he said.
"I don't know anyone who does this, except for Max," said Jonathan S. Spencer, a New York-based maritime adjuster who determines the monetary losses of shipping accidents. "It's hard to say how much people like him are used. They work in gray areas of the law. They are very discreet, and the people who hire them are discreet as well."
WITH his graying hair, walrus mustache and moderate build, Hardberger doesn't fit the profile of a swashbuckler.
He taught history and English at parochial schools in Louisiana and Mississippi after graduating from the University of New Orleans and earning a master's degree from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.
Outside the classroom, he worked on Gulf Coast oil rigs and the vessels that served them. For several years in the 1980s he skippered a cargo ship in the Caribbean and later wrote "Freighter Captain," a novel based on the experience.
In 1998, after a four-year correspondence course, he passed the California bar exam on the first try. He now practices maritime law, mostly in the Caribbean, but regularly comes to Southern California to handle cases.
Hardberger fell into the ship extraction business in 1991 while managing two freighters for Morgan Price & Co., a wastepaper exporter in Miami.
Morgan Price had chartered one of the vessels, the Patric M, to a Peruvian company that used it to carry steel to Venezuela.
When the company refused to pay Morgan Price $80,000, the Miami firm instructed the captain to dock at Puerto Cabello in Venezuela, its destination, but not unload the cargo.
In retaliation, Hardberger said, the Peruvian firm bribed court officials to detain the Patric M in port and allow the company to operate it. A judge even jailed the master and chief engineer, but not before the engineer was forced at gunpoint to power up the vessel's cranes so unloading could proceed.
Hardberger flew to Venezuela. He says he persuaded court officials to put the captain and chief engineer under house arrest at a hotel.
Hardberger then met with the two men. The captain refused to participate in the repossession, fearing for his safety. When the chief engineer agreed to help, he and Hardberger slipped out of the hotel through a laundry room.
In the evening, they took a taxi to the waterfront and walked along the port wall that was topped with barbed wire, finally gaining entry by crawling under a railroad gate.
Once inside the port, Hardberger said, they hid in doorways, culverts and the shadows of shipping containers to elude guards and stevedores.
"Extractions are a big risk. If you get caught, you are looking at a very serious charge," Hardberger said. "In some countries, you could wait two or three years for trial and end up with a 20-year sentence."
At the unguarded ship, both men climbed the gangway, and Hardberger found the first mate, a heavy-set Panamanian, who agreed to cooperate.
The Patric M's crew, which had not been replaced by the Peruvian company, was assembled in the mess for a briefing. Everyone signed on to the plan.
Later in the evening, the crew cut the ship's lines from the deck. The main engine came to life with a few deep thumps.
Proceeding at "dead slow ahead," Hardberger steered the 340-foot cargo ship past a naval base and through the narrow harbor entrance.
En route to Aruba, Hardberger said, he received a radio message saying Venezuela had notified Interpol — the global police agency — that the ship had departed without permission.
He soon found an isolated anchorage off the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico. The crew ground off the original name and identification numbers that are stamped into the steel of every cargo ship when it is built.
All the Patric M's documents — plans, ledgers, log books and certifications — were copied and altered to reflect its new name. The originals were destroyed, including its Panamanian registration forms.
Then, Hardberger said, he found a country willing to register stateless vessels, no questions asked. He declined to name the country, but there were only a few at the time, such as Honduras, Vanuatu and the Marshall Islands. International regulatory agencies have since banned the practice.
About a year after acquiring its new identity, the Patric M was sold by Morgan Price.
"International waters," Hardberger said, "are worse than the Wild West. In many ways, there is little or no opportunity to avenge the wrongs people have done to you."
For the last 3 1/2 years, Hardberger has operated Vessel Extractions with Michael L. Bono, an admiralty law attorney and one of his former high school students.
BEFORE repossessing a ship, they make sure the vessel has been seized illegally and the claims filed against it are fraudulent.
If negotiations and legal methods fail, the company will proceed with an extraction, a step that might include payments to local officials if a nation's government is corrupt.
Those payments, Hardberger said, are made under exceptions in the federal Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits U.S. citizens from bribing foreign officials to retain or obtain business.
"In a rogue state, you can't tie your hands behind you," Hardberger said. "It is common to find that the court system is rife with corruption."
Extracting a ship can cost a client $100,000 or more.
If a repossession is requested, Hardberger and his team quietly enter the country involved. They seek out friendly officials and trusted local contacts such as ship agents who tend to a vessel's logistical needs in port.
"You need to pick up clues about the ship and what is said in the bars, at the ship chandlers and in the local whorehouses," Hardberger said. "Crews are not that sophisticated and talk about their orders and departure times. You can really keep track of a vessel this way."
Hardberger said he does not carry a firearm, though he has hired bodyguards, as he did with the Aztec Express. Stealth and trickery are the preferred methods.
"I do not want my face seen," he added.
Such tactics were employed in April 1999, when Hardberger was asked to extract a 280-foot cargo ship that had put in for repairs at Drapetsona, a part of the Greek port of Piraeus. "It's a place," he says, "where ship names are repainted quickly."
The small freighter was Hungarian and, despite the fall of the Soviet Union, was still equipped with a commissar's office. It contained a secret radio room and the complete works of Lenin.
When the repair company charged four times the agreed-upon price to fix a huge dent in the stern, Hardberger said, the owner refused to pay. Port officials then denied the vessel a clearance to leave.
Hardberger and the ship's agent got permission to move the ship to a port anchorage under the ruse that she needed refueling. The new location would make it possible for a crew to reach the vessel by launch.
Then, with everything in place, Hardberger waited for the weekend of Greek Easter, a religious festival marked by rich pageantry and widespread celebration.
To help the coast guard enjoy the event, Hardberger arranged for the ship agent to drop off several cases of ouzo at the station, which overlooked the port.
At 2 a.m. on a Sunday, a crew boarded the unattended freighter and sailed it out of the harbor unnoticed.
Hardberger, who coordinated the operation from shore, sat in a seaman's bar in Piraeus with friends, including the ship's agent. In the ancient port, they toasted their success with vodka.