Mount Sutro is on hiatus for a week or two. When articles resume, look forward to the overdue post-vacation report and photography along with a few other previously promised items.

In the meantime, appease your appetite for fresh content by visiting the Exit Piazza, the index of sites I frequent. Both link indices have been updated today.

While I am vacationing in New York City, please send me a greeting from wherever you are in the world. Since I will not be checking e-mail or going online, it would be a fun way to stay connected to Mount Sutro in a unique way such as this.

Sending me a message is easy. Use any e-mail account to send a message* to mobile@mountsutro.org. Tell me your first name, city and if you reside outside of the United States, your country.

I hope to hear from you! See you next week.

* Please note that messages longer than 108 characters are truncated. I have my server forward a copy of messages sent to the above address to both my mobile and a standard e-mail account so I always have a full copy of the message waiting for me. The moral of the story is to keep messages brief so I can read them remotely. Thanks!

In a previous article simply entitled "DriveCam," I explored the new automobile monitoring device of the same name designed to allow parents an inside view into their child's daily driving habits.

After initially hearing about the DriveCam on NPR's All Things Considered, I was interested in looking further into this technology. After reading the official DriveCam website and watching the video examples available for streaming, I concluded that this device had nearly unlimited commercial potential. The original story and most of the promotional material focused more on the "parent watching child" use. I questioned whether or not a solution of this design would aide in a parent's teaching their children how to drive or if it would simply side-step the issue and not act as any reasonable deterrent.

Apparently, in application my original opinions are open to more debate. Several users of the DriveCam unit have come to Mount Sutro to express their personal opinions based on their own experiences. They are all available here: DriveCam Visitor Comments.

UPDATE

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A representative of DriveCam has added his comments to the aformentioned article. Check it out.

Living in a city that is more progressive than not, it is easy to forget that racism is not only a tactic used by governments and political action groups, but is practiced by otherwise normal individuals.

Last night, while chatting outside a Bennigan's restaurant, my group and me were approached by a man. He had long, straight, blond hair and slightly resembled musician Kid Rock.

As he walked up to our group of four, he singled out our friend Tom and invited him to read the back of his t-shirt. I could see before he turned around that displayed on the front of this shirt was the flag for the Confederate States of America. On the back was text that read something like this, "If we would have known it was going to be such a big deal, we would have picked our own cotton. White Pride!"

After giving Tom the chance to read this racist statement, the man posed to give a high-five which Tom did so as not to upset the stranger. Afterward, he said "white pride" and walked away into the night.