Yelena just finished a week doing night shift at the hospital so now she gets a little time off.  We took the opportunity to visit Grandma & Grandpa in San Diego.  On the way down I tried a new route: Highway 198.  It's a tiny little slice of California tucked in between US 101 and I-5, and it's gorgeous.  As we drove along, I thought to myself, "this is God's country."  Around the next turn was a sign: Priest Valley.  Seemed appropriate.  When we got to the other side we had a lunch in a town called Coalinga, and met the sheriff's deputy and the lawyer (there are only two in town).

A lot of people these days seem to feel that science is at war with religion.  I'm not convinced that it is, or that it ever was.

I think the Mehserle verdict was fair.  Let's break it down.

Involuntary manslaughter is the unlawful killing of another human being, without malice or intent.  You're still guilty of a crime--a felony, no less--and you'll still be punished.

In keeping with my slow quest to catch up on my photo backlog, here are a couple new galleries.  First, the cruise:

I went to the Web 2.0 Expo a couple months ago and someone asked me to talk into a video camera about how the web has changed my life.  Now you can vote for me online - every day!

http://howdoyou.com/pages/ViewEntry.aspx?entry=65

Please remember to vote early, vote often!

J<

Everything is going great so far. We had our first stop in Cabo San Lucas, mostly famous as a place college students go to on spring break. This is my first trip to Mexico (since I was old enough to remember). Although Yelena's been to Mexico multiple times, she's never been to Cabo. Both of us were rather disgusted by the town; it's very clean and all the buildings are brand new and freshly painted and there are cops everywhere, but you still don't feel safe.

For a while now I've been aware that the Droid is the fabled "iPhone killer."  The conventional wisdom disagrees, claiming that no one has toppled the iPhone yet, especially with the hot new one coming out.  The Droid's hardware stacks up nicely against the iPhone 3G, even the 3GS, but of course the real magic is in the software.  In this case, text entry.

There's an op-ed in today's New York Times about the place of electronic communication in society:

Nathan had spots last night.  We gave him an antihistamine and were going to take him in this morning, but the spots went away.  We've had two pediatricians tell us not to worry about it.

Click on the image for full size.  (Updated to make it easier to view the photos.)

That's right, I'm an official Starcraft 2 beta tester.  I don't have as much time to burn as I did with Starcraft 1 (to say nothing of Warcraft, WCII, or WCIII), but I spared a few minutes to poke around.  Many things I like, but some I don't.