Thank you to UPN for renewing Enterprise. See more here .

On a recent trip to Shanghai I was trying to use a public phone. I read just a little Chinese, so I was checking to see if it had english instructions. Do you see which button to push from the picture below. You have to know to push the bottom of the two buttons on the left which have the symbols zhong and ying for Chinese and English. So to get English instructions… you must know Chinese.

Another programmer who I work with, wore a tee shirt into work with this phrase:

“There are 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don’t”

If you read this tee shirt and laugh, you are a nerd. I laughed and then sent out to my friends. Click here to order your own.

Does anyone else have surreal conversations with their kids like I did today with my 16 year old son Mike?

Mike: Dad, if you had the mental powers of Charles Xavier from the X-men, where you could influence what people think, would you use your powers for the good of others or for your own gain?

Me: I would use my powers to create world peace and solve world hunger.

Mike: How would you do that?

Me: I would become Miss America.

Mike: Get real dad.

As the father of two high school students it is my job, every other day or so, to drive my kids to school…. While driving in Rome offers the joys of being passed on both sides simultaneously on the right and left by Vespas carrying a family of four, our local neighborhood offers its own challenges…. This area draws smart people from all over the world to contribute to its reputation as the world class high technology Mecca. So within the melting pot that makes up America, I live in a region where the local high school has a very large population of Asian immigrants…

There was an art fair in San Francisco today in Union Square. I enjoyed the photography of Zeny Cieslikowski that was being exhibited. His work is also showing at www.ColorPhotographs.com .

It has been a hard year to be Giants fan so far. After leading from wire to wire last year the Giants traded a number of players we knew. This year I have been reminded of Jerry Seinfeld’s routine about rooting for the shirts. The people we used to root for now are wearing different shirts, so we don’t like them any more. But there are new people wearing the right shirts, so we like them.

Everyone should be a baseball fan. It builds character. It teaches you how to deal with failure. Sometimes when your team is down, they come back. Sometime Barry hits a home run in the 9th. And sometimes after a slow start you team whens 8 in a row. The Giants are finally back to playing 500 and 3 games back in the anemic National League West and hope springs eternal.

It was not immediately apparent that I had missed the turn I was looking for in the small town near Rhonda. What I now know, is that the road I had been following had come to an intersection and turned, not left, but nearly back on itself again in that direction. All I knew then is that the road I had been following had suddenly and dramatically shrunk. Instead of two lanes of traffic, there now seemed even less than one and I was now following an older woman down the street…