RADIO CONTROLLED CLOCKS | WATCHES

Are you searching for a fashionable watch? There are a lot of things that one must think about. Cost is, obviously, a significant factor, but no less essential is the appearance of the timepiece and its competence. Those looking out for a fashionable Asian wristwatch must therefore look into buying a Seiko watch. Possessing Seiko watches is verified to be an enduring investment. As people say, you acquire what you pay for, and even more. The superiority talks for itself. These timepieces are extremely consistent and perfect in time keeping. Similar to the Seiko Spring Drive, the equipment of its mainspring instrument is to drive precision in time parameter.

More significantly, Seiko watches are recognized not just for their technology but as well for their sturdiness. It is constantly very appropriate timepiece for everybody. The Seiko Sportura and Seiko Dive are exceptionally suitable on sporting events and open-air activities. The Seiko Quartz is most excellent throughout informal occasions. Whereas the Seiko Kinetic Series, Seiko Chronograph all these watches are suitable for daily wear. The internet offers grand pictures of the diverse models and superiority parts and is assured by Seiko Watch Company. Every style is strictly manufactured to go with the personality of their clients.

Seiko timepieces these days are utilized for numerous significant events. Most particularly, the Olympic sports event has used these wristwatches as their official watches for the reason that they are famous to be astonishingly perfect. Even though the Seiko Company produces a lot of diverse styles of timepieces, the most well-liked kind of Seiko watch is the wristwatch. Because this corporation is one of just a small number of that manufactures each facet of the timepiece in-house, these timepieces are famous for their superior technology.

The Seiko brand produces both automatic and quartz timepieces. Few of types of Seiko watches do not need any battery at all. As they are power-driven by daily wear. Seiko wristwatches differ according to price; they are economical usually being less than $100 and the classiest which cost around quite a few thousand dollars. If a person is a collector of these timepieces, it must be prominent that the Seiko Company does not make all sort of watch accessible in all the areas. In fact, there are a lot of types of these timepieces that are just offered in Asia and not all over the world.

If you are searching to buy a Seiko timepiece, you must first check with the phonebook for trustworthy timepiece sellers, or go online to search some online stores. Undeniably, this kind of timepiece is the perfect option for those searching for a timepiece that is both stunning and competent.

Here you will learn about fossil watches, seiko watches and g-shock watches

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When it comes to accuracy in timekeeping, GPS automatic clocks are as good as it gets. These clocks are made possible with the world’s most reliable and accurate synchronized clock system technology. They are accurate to an almost unimaginable fraction of a second. This is true even when the power goes out, because they are capable of storing data until the electricity comes back on, unless, of course, the power stays off for an unreasonably long period of time.

These clocks have outstanding transmission, flexibility and range. They are perfect for any time-sensitive setting. They are used for government applications as well as in commercial office buildings. They are perfect for schools, and in particular, institutions of higher education. They are relied upon by many hospitals as well.

Time signals are wirelessly transmitted from global positioning satellites that guarantee the accuracy of these clocks. Daylight Savings Time is never a problem, because they adjust automatically. This saves the valuable labor costs for the time that is normally required to manually set each clock. In a large institution such as a college or university, this can mean hundreds of dollars of savings for just one day’s function. GPS automatic clocks work continuously, every hour of every day.

They provide superior signal transmission to assure problem-free accuracy. Furthermore, they give full coverage across an entire university, hospital or work facility, or anywhere else they may be needed. These clocks are one hundred percent FCC compliant and installation is available by their distributors. Furthermore, prior to their installation, most dealers of GPS clocks analyze the worksite to assure the client receives the very best system that fits the needs of their place of business.

GPS technology is utterly amazing. The one thing that airline pilots, sailors, truck drivers and hikers all have in common is that they rely on GPS clocks, some without even realizing it. Every car that has a GPS navigation system installed also benefits from the accurate time recorded by GPS automatic clocks. There are 24 GPS satellites in orbit right now. Each of them has 4 Atomic Clocks on board. A triangulation of time signals is broadcast from orbit allowing GPS receivers on earth to pinpoint their own locations with precise accuracy. This coincides with the 100% accuracy of the clocks.

Purchasers of GPS automatic clocks are not limited to one style or size. These clocks come in a large assortment of sizes, configurations and attractive styles such as brushed aluminum frames or a company logo or school mascot. There are even models available for the upscale workplace that have solid hardwood frames that are available in a number of different finishes.

GPS automatic clocks can be used anywhere on the planet with a convenient, reliable, secure and unstoppable accuracy. GPS automatic clocks are perfect, whether a client needs to coordinate school bells to cut down on confusion or monitor a time-sensitive medical procedure.

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Ever wanted some thing unique and lovely! Liquid filled products are one of the most aye catching items the world has seen and are really meaning full to the people.

There are many companies around the world that produce liquid filled items. Most of them are promotional products like mouth pads, pens, key holders, mousse mention them. The liquids in which these products are filled usually glitters and attract revealers to have them and these items have helped producers to market their products.

Most of these items may contain the addresses and products produced by companies hence marketing those companies and in most cases these items for the sake of promotion are given out free of charge to help create market for some companies.

There are other liquid filled items which are not just for promotion for example gas controllers, watches, clocks, weighing scales, radios and sports equipment like lawn tennis rackets and table tennis bats. These are real products that have costs attached to have them since these can help people in their leisure time to play games with some distinct equipment adored by the youth most often.

In addition some transparent liquid filled balls have been made and these are not used for playing but rather are made as prizes for winners. Gas is used to carry out many functions since it is a source of power used in factories and homes all around the globe; weighing scales are used in measuring products’ weight while clocks and watches can be used in homes and outside for timing.

Some people love these liquid filled items and some give them to their loved ones as gifts since some of them are made in form of flowers and love hearts. They really mean a lot to love birds since they have sharp colors that make them beautiful. Also some people prefer to put their photos in liquid filled photo flames that make them look elegant, such flames are always hung in peoples living rooms to give the house some life since they are true sense of art.

In addition such items can be used for decollating at parties. Some of the filled items are made in form of balloons and oval shaped lights that give a true sense of decollation. Places decollated with these items look very beautiful, colorful and high class. There fore items filled with liquids are loved all around the world and bring life to many people.

There are other liquid filled items which are not just for promotion for example gas controllers, watches, clocks, weighing scales, radios and sports equipment like lawn tennis rackets and table tennis bats. These are real products that have costs attached to have them since these can help people in their leisure time to play games with some distinct equipment adored by the youth most often.

John was not happy, he had put fourteen years into his marriage, doing what he could to make it a happy one. Then after fourteen years he found out that his wife was having an affair with an old high school flame. He thought that they had fourteen good years and he was blissfully unaware of any problems. Now he is struggling to comprehend what has happened, his world has come crashing down around him and his mind feels like it is no longer his own. He finds it difficult to be positive about anything as everything has become tainted by the affair. His mind has gone into non stop overdrive, analysing everything about his marriage, wondering what he did wrong, wondering what they did together. A part of him wishes that he could turn the clock back to before he discovered the affair, when he was still happy. John is struggling to see a way out of the mess, wherever he looks he sees negativity, he feels like he is losing his mind. What is happening to John is not unique. No matter who you are, if you have been dealt a blow like this you will feel like your mind is no longer your own and that it is plagued with dark and ugly thoughts. Although it is easier said than done, you have to learn to control your thoughts and do not let the affair consume you.

If you have just found out that your spouse has had an affair, it is like your world has come to an end. You have been betrayed, you try to look to the future that you once saw but can no longer see anything. If like John you thought that you had a good marriage this betrayal is made worse by the belief that you can no longer trust your judgement, can you ever trust again?

You want and need to understand why the affair happened, and what happened. As the victim in this you will be trying to comprehend something that is often totally incomprehensible. As you try to think things through you start to question the validity of the foundations of truth, trust, commitment. You wonder if the values that you held dear held any worth or meaning.

Are these thoughts causing you grief. I do not think that our marriage can withstand the strain. I hate them, they are scum. The sight of my loving spouse repels me. What have they got that I do not? Are they better looking? Do they have better prospects than I do? Is it because I put some weight on? Have I spent too much time with the kids and not enough time with my spouse?

The list is endless.

The negative thoughts that you have to endure mix in you as the victim, your spouse who betrayed you, and what will happen to your marriage. The affair consumes your mind so it becomes all that you can think about, and everything that you do becomes defined in relation to the affair.

Negative Thought Loops

Just like anyone in your situation you need to know what happened, you crave all the details. Any time that you think about the affair mind becomes cluttered with images that you do not want to see, but you are unable to help yourself from visiting them again and again and again.

Until you are able to take action and learn how to control your thoughts they will haunt you while you sleep and awake. You will not be able to escape your negative thought loop overnight, it will take time. Being only human you will have days when you make no forward progress, you might even slip back a bit, the important thing is not to let it get to you and to keep pushing forward. If you keep working at it you will reach the point where you have healed your mind and are once again in control of your thoughts.

Reclaim Your Inner Sanctuary

Why would anyone want to live a life of unalloyed misery when they did not have to. Your mind is your inner sanctuary, however, you are the only one who can take it back. Your are the victim in this. I am certain that your spouse did not consult you about their affair, and you certainly did not ask for this to happen to you. It is unfair that your spouse betrayed you and that as a result you are unable to find any kind of peace. Much as you would like to, you cannot change the past, it has happened and you need to accept that.

What you can do is to influence your future by managing your thinking. Negative thoughts are vile things with tremendous staying power. But if you are ready to take them on then you can beat them back with positive replacements. However, before you can look at rebuilding your marriage, you have to protect yourself. It is going to be a long time before you can bring yourself to trust your spouse. If you want to stand any chance of saving your marriage you are going to have to start on it before you fully trust them. In order to protect, yourself you need to see some massive changes in how your spouse acts before you can deal with your thoughts.

Once you are ready to regain control of your thoughts you can use these three steps to get you started.

1. Track your thoughts.

You need to be able to track your thoughts, and learn to recognize the signs of your negative thoughts as they occur. For example, if you wanted to lose weight, then you would track what you ate. As you track what you eat you will begin to identify how to modify your diet in order to achieve your goals. On the other hand, if you want to stop smoking then by tracking how many cigarettes you can find that you start to smoke less.

So, when you track your thoughts, you need to develop an awareness of the times or places when you are: Less likely to have negative thoughts. More likely to have negative thoughts.

Or where you have no or hardly any negative thoughts.

Step 2. You need to identify your negative thought-loop patterns

Try to identify patterns for when you experience the thought-loops, such as specific times when your mind seems unable break free of negativity. Do these loops occur at specific times of the day? Maybe when you are trying to go to sleep? Or when you are on the daily commute to and from work. Or are there any other times of the day when you are affected?

Does engaging in a specific activity trigger a loop? Is there a movie or movie genre that affects you? Maybe you could be affected when you go to a favorite restaurant? Think about other locations or activities that could trigger a loop.

Are these loops specific to something that you see or hear? For example hearing about an affair in the news, newspaper, radio, T.V or a movie? Can you think of any other triggers?

Step 3. Break negative thought-loop patterns

Once you have discovered the patterns that define when negative thoughts are occurring for you, create actionable steps that break the pattern, planning ahead for when these occurrences may crop up.

Time of day: If you’ve discovered that your thoughts turn negative at bedtime, change your bedtime ritual. Take a warm soak in the tub, or read poetry in your chair rather than the newspaper in bed. If these thoughts occur during your commute, listen to a book-on-tape.

Do anything that grabs your attention away from those thoughts and breaks the problem pattern.

During an Activity:

You may have found that your usual movie fare is contributing to those negative thoughts. So, switch your taste in movies, at least for the time-being while you are retraining yourself out of this pattern. If you normally sit down to a romantic comedy, choose an adventure film, or suspense. If your favorite restaurant is where you find yourself caught up in negative thoughts, find another restaurant-even if it has to be in a different neighbourhood.

Something You Unexpectedly See/Hear.

Maybe you’ve discovered that you are randomly broadsided by things you see and hear-you never know what will cause the thought-loop to launch. In this case, be ready: actively fight the thought as you realize it’s occurring. Have something in place that you can use to deflect your mind to a new subject.

For example, if you see a car that reminds you of the one driven by the paramour of your spouse, turn your head and look at a building out of your other car window (of course, not if this would interfere with your safe driving). If you hear something on the radio, lift your hand and turn the dial to another station.

Take an active stance of some sort to break the pattern, do not give it an opportunity to gain a foothold on your thinking, which means stopping the problem-thinking at the earliest possible time in the sequence.

In order to be successful at these techniques, you have to practice other thoughts when there is no problem thinking. You have to have a ready list of pleasant or positively entertaining thoughts prepared prior to the time one of these loops begins.

For example, when something brings up a mental image that would lead into a negative thought loop, have a standby image ready with which to replace it. Picture a bucket of turquoise-blue paint, and when an unbidden image pops up in your head, grab an imaginary paintbrush and lay the paint on thick, covering the scene.

In my program How to Survive an Affair, I share many more steps for controlling your thoughts, including ways to clear your mind so you can begin to own your own thoughts once again. I also give you advanced techniques and practical strategies to stop the haunting: fend off negative thoughts and end the struggle that comes from the flurry of emotions you’ve attached to them.

If your thoughts are not your own right now, there’s no point in needlessly suffering and feeling as if you’re losing control of everything in your world, including your own mind.

How do you deal with relationship problems? How do you deal with problems in your marriage? Sometimes it helps to take a step back and have a look at what other people are saying. So if you are struggling to find a way forward then pay a visit to my sites and see if you can find help there.

High-growth economies such as Brazil, Indonesia, India and China have an emerging middle class and rapidly growing automotive markets. The vehicle retail price in these markets must be relatively low, putting cost pressure on components in these vehicles. Additionally, automotive markets in developed economies such as the United States, European nations and Japan are also seeing an increased demand for cost-sensitive solutions after the global financial crisis that began in 2008.

Traditional technologies used in automotive AM/FM tuners are typically BiCMOS tuners with a 10.7 MHz IF tuner architecture. This technology/architecture delivers on radio reception performance, but the process and architecture are cost prohibitive for mixed-signal architectures where RF circuits are integrated with digital processing engines such as DSPs and microcontrollers in a monolithic circuit to deliver fully processed audio outputs.

Digital low-IF CMOS AM/FM receivers very much fit the bill due to the much lower cost points of CMOS foundries and the use of a digital low-IF tuner architecture. Digital low-IF AM/FM receivers have been in use in the handset and portable media player markets for a number of years.

RF Dynamic Range

In crowded FM spectrums that are very common in urban settings, the abundance of radio stations can overwhelm the radio receiver tuned to a desired station whose signal strength is relatively weak. The most severe and common non-linear distortion resulting from strong interferers is third order inter-modulation (IMD3) distortion resulting from two strong close-in blockers that show up on-channel on a weak desired station tuned to.

In many applications an external tracking filter is used on the front end of the receiver to attenuate the blockers. This technique, however, is costly in terms of components and PCB real estate.To minimize IMD3 distortion products, the dynamic range of the receiver front end must be adequate.

Selectivity and Dynamic Bandwidth Control

Selectivity refers to a tuner’s ability to receive a weak station in the presence of stronger stations at small frequency offsets. This is especially important for receivers in crowded FM spectrums in urban environments. An important performance requirement, especially for European markets where the channel spacing is 100 kHz for FM broadcast, is adjacent channel selectivity, which refers to suppression of signals ±100kHz away from the tuned frequency and which is usually no better than 30dB in many tuners found in the low-cost category.

While 30 dB selectivity performance may be adequate for many field conditions, there are many situations in the world in which a listener is tuned to a station broadcast from a distant location while driving past towers broadcasting multiple stations in the local region. In this scenario, much higher selectivity is required.

Sensitivity

Sensitivity refers to a tuner’s ability to pull in weak stations. If you live in a rural area away from the transmitters of most radio stations, the sensitivity of a tuner will be of great importance. With current car radios, the performance requirements are typically microvolt level sensitivity, allowing the car radio to pull in an extremely weak signal and extending its ability to tune into a station dozens of miles away.

Alternative frequency (AF) Check

In Europe, alternative frequency (AF) technology is an optimal choice that allows the car radio tuner to tune to a different frequency that provides the same station when the first signal becomes too weak when moving out of range. This technology is often used in European car radio systems, enabled by radio data system (RDS) technology where the AF list is transmitted via RDS data.

In summary, continuing cost pressures in the global automotive market are driving the development and deployment of highly integrated and innovative CMOS radio receiver IC solutions that will provide significant cost savings in transitioning from traditional architectures and analog-centric semiconductor processes typically employed for car radio tuners.

Silabs – Wireless RF and Clock Generators

Copyright (c) 2007 Galleon Systems

This article explains how GPS Time server Systems achieves exact timing information to give a highly accurate timing reference for Network Computer time.

GPS System is a navigation system operated by the Military but also can be used by the civilian and does not need any subscription. The GPS System is known as an extremely accurate global positioning system. Each GPS satellite has an onboard a highly accurate atomic clock, ideal for supplying the correct time for computer network time synchronization.

GPS Time Servers: The GPS System exist of a constellation of 24 orbiting satellites, each has a precise atomic clock timing reference and covers the entire globe. The exact time information can be continuously broadcast from each of the satellites. You can receive the broadcast timing information with a relatively low cost GPS antenna and receiver.

GPS time is transmitted as Universal Coordinated Time (UTC), which is similar to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). The UTC time is the same worldwide and does not vary regarding the time zone or daylight saving time. UTC is a very accurate atomic time standard sustained by Atomic Clocks located in national standards laboratories. UTC has consistent seconds distinct by the International Atomic Time (TAI) Institute.

GPS Radio Transmission: The GPS satellites broadcast information as very low-power radio frequency transmission. There are two designated frequency that are used, one for civilian use coded L1 and the Military use coded L2.The civilian L1 frequency is transmitted at 1575MHz. It can easiliy pass through plastic and glass but is blocked by metal and brick.

GPS Antenna Location: The precondition to receive transmission from as many satellites as possible is a good clear view to the sky. Ideally a roof mounted antenna is best with a full 360-degree view of the sky. Conversely, an antenna can be located on the side of the building with a 180-degree view of the sky if the horizon is not too obscured.

GPS Antenna Types: The GPS antenna is essentially a signal amplifier. The antenna improves the received GPS signals for transmission along a cable to a receiver for decoding. A Coax Cable is normally used to transfer signal information between the GPS antenna and receiver. These antennas can be provided in different shapes and sizes. The general antennas being pole-mounted are dome shaped antennas and small patch type antennas. The pole-mounting antenna screws onto the threaded pole for mounting. Whereas the patch type antenna is a small flat bottomed device ideal for mounting on a windowsill.

GPS Receivers: GPS Receivers decipher the GPS transmission received from the antenna into a useable format. NMEA is the most common protocol used by the GPS receiver. This protocol insists a number of sentences which provide a packet on information confirm of time, date and positioning information. The NMEA protocol quotes information indicating visible satellites and satellite location.

GPS time servers can use a specific GPS timing receiver. These timing receivers have additional functions to provide a highly accurate reference time. The timing receiver can also perform an automated survey and compare satellite Atomic Clocks to check for synchronicity. GPS time servers may also use an accurate pulse per second (PPS) output, which provides a highly accurate reference trigger for GPS timing, generated by the receiver.

GPS Antenna Installation: The gain of the antenna and the coax is important for the maximum cable distance that can be used by a GPS antenna and receiver. An antenna used with a GPS time server may have 35dB gain. RG58 coax has an attenuation of 0.64dB/m at 1575MHz. Therefore a cable length of 35/0.64=55m could be used. Higher quality coax has a much lower attentuation value allowing longer cable runs. Also GPS amplifiers and updown converters can be utilized to increase the cable length. Surge lightening arrestors are also recommended on externally mounted GPS antenna to protect expensive network equipment from potential damage by lighting strikes

The author; Magdalena Sperber is a technical writer with a background in computer network timing. Magdalena provides a technical authoring service for NTP Server and GPS NTP time reference manufactures.

The GPS system is a satellite navigation system operated by the US Department of Defence. It essentially provides a subscription-free civilian timing and navigation service. GPS is primarily intended as a highly accurate global positioning and navigation reference. However, a by-product of accurate positioning is that each orbiting satellite also has an integrated highly precise atomic clock unit synchronised by the US Naval Observatory (USNO). It is therefore ideal for providing a high accuracy time reference for computer timing systems, such as NTP. This article attempts to describe simply, how network time servers can obtain accurate timing information to provide a precise reference for computer time synchronisation. It also discusses how NTP servers can utilise the atomic time generated by GPS to provide a timing reference for computer networks.

The GPS system is a constellation of 24 orbiting satellites, each with highly precise atomic clock timing systems onboard. The system provides a global service, which can be received anywhere on the face of the planet. Accurate time data is transmitted continuously from each satellite. The time information can easily be received with modern low-cost antenna and receiver equipment.

Time is broadcast from each satellite as Universal Coordinated Time (UTC), which is virtually identical to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). UTC time is the same worldwide; it does not vary with time zone or daylight saving time. UTC is a high precision atomic time standard maintained by Atomic Clocks located in national standards laboratories. UTC has uniform seconds, as defined by the International Atomic Time (TAI) institute.

Each satellite broadcasts time and positioning information as a very low-power radio frequency transmission. The US Military designates two frequencies, one for civilian use coded L1, and one for military use coded L2. The L1 frequency is broadcast at 1575 MHz (1.575 GHz). These weak radio transmissions can easily pass through less dense materials, such as plastics and glass, but are blocked by denser materials, such as metal and brick. However, newer more sensitive receivers are being developed for indoor operation.

A GPS antenna needs to have a ‘line-of-sight’ view of satellites. Therefore, a roof-mounted antenna is ideal, with a full 360-degree view of the sky. Quite often however, an antenna located on the side of a building is adequate, provided the horizon is not too obscured by trees or buildings. The antenna is essentially a signal amplifier; it boosts the received signals for transmission along a cable to a receiver. Fifty-ohm coax cable is generally used to transfer signal information between the antenna and receiver.

The receiver decodes the signals received by the antenna into a useable, easily readable format. The most common protocol used by receivers is NMEA, which consists of a number of transmitted sentences. Each NMEA sentence provides a packet of information consisting of time, date and positioning information. The protocol also provides additional information such as visible satellites and satellite orientation in the sky.

NTP servers utilise a specific receiver tailored for timing applications. Timing receivers have additional functions and circuitry to ensure a highly precise reference time. They also perform an automated site-survey to compare satellite clocks for synchronicity. Time servers also utilise an accurate pulse per second (PPS) output generated by the receiver. A PPS output provides a highly accurate reference trigger for timing purposes.

The GPS system provides an ideal solution for computer network timing applications. Using the ‘free-to-air’ system, NTP time servers can synchronise to within a few microseconds of UTC.

Dave Evans has written a number of articles on time server and network timing. Click here, if you would like more information on NTP server systems.

Keeping computer networks accurate and synchronised can’t be emphasised highly enough. Accurate time is essential in the modern global economy as computer networks across the globe are required to constantly talk to each other.

Failing to ensure a network is accurate and precise can lead to headache after headache: transactions can fail, data can get lost, and error logging and debugging can be virtually impossible.

Atomic Clocks

Atomic Clocks form the basis of the global timescale – UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). UTC is used across the globe by technology and computer networks enabling the entire commercial and technological world to communicate in synchronicity together.

But as Atomic Clocks are highly technical (and expensive) pieces of hardware that require a team of technicians to control – where do people get a source of such accurate time?

The answer is quite simple; atomic clock timestamps are transmitted by physics laboratories and are available from a whole host of sources – kept accurate by the time software NTP (Network Time Protocol).

NTP Time Servers

The most common location for sources of atomic clock generated UTC is the internet. A whole host of online time servers are available for synchronisation but these can vary in their accuracy and precision. Furthermore, using a source of internet time can create vulnerabilities in the network as the firewall has to allow these timestamps through and therefore can be utilised by viruses and malicious software.

By far the most secure and accurate method of receiving a source of atomic clock generated time is to utilise the GPS network (Global Positioning System).

GPS time servers are unique in that as long as there is a clear view of the sky they can receive a source of time – anywhere on the globe, 24 hours-a-day, 365 days a year.

They are also highly accurate with a single GPS NTP time server able to synchronise entire networks to just a few milliseconds of UTC.

Richard N Williams is a technical author and a specialist in the digital signage industry helping to develop outdoor digital signage and protection for plasmas. Please visit us for more information about LCD Enclosures or other digital signage solutions.

Today was our relocation day: we moved from our vacation apartment in Solana Beach in San Diego to the chic Sofia Hotel in downtown San Diego. On another brilliant day we arrived at the hotel at about 10 am, but our room was not ready yet, so we decided to embark on some brief local explorations.

Seaport Village’s Victorian, Mexican and East Coast style architecture and its four miles of meandering cobble-stoned walkways create an inviting waterfront environment for shopping and dining. The assortment of merchandise includes souvenirs, clothing, kites, wind chimes and unique gift ideas. Galleries and art retailers round out the offering, and live music is offered frequently throughout the year. An original 1895 carousel with hand carved animals enchants adults and children. Culinary options include four fine dining restaurants and thirteen casual eateries.

An outdoor exhibit of oversized globes currently adds extra interest to Seaport Village. ‘Cool Globes – Hot ideas for a cooler planet’ features 40 inspiring globes that depict simple solutions to global warming. The globes were designed by local, national and international artists and have been traveling on the road in places such as Chicago, Washington D.C., San Francisco and will be on display in Los Angeles and London in 2009.

Further north of Seaport Village is the Embarcadero which features the USS Midway, an aircraft carrier that was in operation between 1945 and 1992. It was donated as a museum ship and has been moored on San Diego’s Navy Pier since 2004. Visitors can tour the ship’s flight deck, mess hall, bridge, flight control area, officers’ quarters, sickbay and portions of the engine room. Evening events are frequently held on this massive ship and a café adorns the rear of the ship. A portion of the ship overlooking San Diego Harbor can be accessed free of charge while admission to the rest of the ship is $17.00.

San Diego has long been a centre for the US Navy and the area around the USS Midway features many reminders of military history including the Battle of Leyte Gulf Memorial, dedicated to a historic naval battle in 1944. The Bob Hope Tribute, also called the National Salute to Bob Hope and the Military, is an impressive collection of larger than life-size bronze figures that commemorate Bob Hope’s five decades of support in entertaining soldiers, airmen and sailors, starting in 1943.

The National Salute consists of 16 figures on a circular plaza that surround a sculpture of Bob Hope, entertaining the crowd in front of a microphone. The surrounding figures are authentic depictions of military personnel from different eras including World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War era and the first Persian Gulf War.

Among the many pieces of public art along this waterfront walk, one of the most stunning is ‘Unconditional Surrender’, a 25-foot sculpture of a sailor kissing a young nurse. The sculpture commemorates the moment when World War II was finally over, and joy and euphoria swept the world. Inspired by a famous photo of the V-J Day Celebrations on Times Square, this sculpture by Seward J. Johnson is on loan to the San Diego port until the end of February of 2009.

Further north along the waterfront is the Cruise Terminal, located at the B Street Pier along North Harbour Drive. San Diego is a port of call for many major cruise lines including Carnival, Holland America, Celebrity, Royal Carribean and Princess Cruises. Almost 620,000 cruise passengers arrived in San Diego in 2006. Local harbour cruises can also be accessed in this area, and a central office of the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau is located right across the street from the cruise terminal.

Now it was time to head back into the head hotel and finally check in. Within less than ten minutes I had arrived at the Sofia Hotel. The front office staff was very friendly, and our suitcases had already been brought up to Suite 602, a Deluxe Studio Suite. Our sleek modern bedroom was enhanced by a sitting room with a second flat screen television and an ergonomic desk. Our bathroom featured a full bath with a luxurious shower head, and a vanity area complete with fresh orchids in the bedroom area.

Always driven by my curiosity, I managed to convince two of the hotel’s employees to give me a tour of the entire hotel a few minutes later. Brian Wells from the front desk and Danny Miranda, a bellboy, graciously agreed and started by explaining the history of the Hotel Sofia to me. Two of the hotel’s towers were built in 1926 and opened a year later as the Pickwick Hotel. The property was part of the Pickwick Corporation, a company that provided 22 stage coach routes in California. The design was Neo Gothic and in 1928 two additional hotel towers were added.

From 1928 to 1944 the hotel even became the location of a broadcasting station called KGB (no association with the former Russian secret service agency). In 1929 Pickwick Stages merged with the Greyhound Corporation. During the 1940s and 1950s the Pickwick Hotel remained a popular tourist and entertainment location, and locals and guests alike enjoyed the Piccadilly Lounge. During the 1950s city council required the decorative architectural elements to be removed from the façade, to prevent potential injuries during an earthquake.

From the mid 1950s to the mid 1980s downtown San Diego experienced a protracted decline and lost its luster as a retail and entertainment destination. Now under new ownership, the Pickwick Hotel started to show its age as well.

New owners Ken Winslow and Harki Parekh purchased the property in 1986 and systematically started to repair the hotel over the next 20 years. With the opening of the immensely successful Horton Plaza retail mall, the rejuvenation of the historic Gaslamp District and the construction of Petco Park, downtown San Diego became a desirable destination again. The location of this hotel was absolutely ideal for us in our discoveries of downtown San Diego.

After this brief introduction of the hotel’s history, we stepped outside the hotel, which is located at the intersection of West Broadway and First Avenue. The statue of the businessman outside the entrance was dedicated to the Center City Development Corporation and City Council as a way of thanking the city for revitalizing this entire district. Brian pointed out that Horton Plaza and the Gaslamp District are literally just a 10 minute walk away. The Sofia is also just seven blocks from the waterfront and the Port area.

Talking about history, the Sofia Hotel became a member of the Historic Hotels of America last year and is the only historic hotel in downtown San Diego. A photo in the entrance area shows the radio towers that used to adorn the hotel in 1934 where 50,000 Watts of airwaves were beamed out all over San Diego.

In a hallway to the left of the lobby we stopped to admire some pictures of the renovation. Brass pictures of the designer, the architects and the owners adorn the wall. One of the pictures shows the renovation, and the unique thing about the entire remodeling process was that the owners kept 12 housekeepers as well as Brian and Danny on staff to help with the demolition. The team removed carpets, ceiling fans, sinks and toilets from 242 hotel rooms, and 720 old doors were ripped out. Danny and Brian said it was great to keep their jobs during the renovation phase and to participate in the transformation of this hotel. Their sense of ownership and pride of the newly restored and glamorous Sofia Hotel was obvious.

Less than three weeks away from Christmas, the lobby was aglow with holiday decorations. Brian added that the hotel currently features a total of 14 Christmas trees, all decorated by the owners. Real orchids adorn the common areas as well as all the hotel rooms. At the back of the lobby facing the entrance is a painting of a young girl on the beaches of Coronado. This girl, Ken Winslow’s granddaughter, is named Sofia and was the inspiration for the new name of the completely remodeled hotel. A cozy sitting area invites guests to sit down and relax by the fireplace.

To the left of the lobby is the business centre which features three brand-new desktop computers, high-speed fibre-optic Internet, colour and black %26 white printers and fax capabilities. This business centre is available to the guests 24 hours a day.

Strolling back out into the lobby we turned right into ‘Currant’, the sleek modern 120-seat restaurant on the- main floor of the Hotel Sofia. Established in 2007, Currant offers upscale American-French cuisine and is open every day for hotel guests and the public. High ceilings, graphic tiles, elaborate chandeliers, uniquely-styled furniture and a private room secluded with sheer curtains, offer a sophisticated ambience.

Heading upstairs now we were on the mezzanine level where several of the Sofia’s awards are proudly on display. Within less than two years since its reopening, the Sofia Hotel has won two Best of Citysearch awards as well as an Expedia Insider’s Select Award. This distinction is only granted to the top 1% of hotels. The restaurant has also won some awards, and the Sofia has also garnered an ASID Design Excellence Award.

Around the corner Brian and Danny took me to two state-of-the-art conference rooms that are equipped for video conferencing and projection. The larger boardroom holds 32 people while the smaller 20-seat boardroom is anchored by a massive antique wooden table. Down the corridor we stepped into the Yoga and Fitness Centre, an amenity that is open 24 hours a day. The hotel even has its own yoga trainer and offers guests TVs, DVD players, fresh towels, bottled water, and infused orange water. The Sofia Hotel has even produced its own yoga DVD!

After the common facilities Brian and Danny took me to room 633, a corner room. A standard room with a queen bed, this room offers an excellent view towards the Port of San Diego. A smaller-size but well-designed room, it features high-quality beds, therapeutic queen pillow tops and luxurious down comforters. A flat-panel TV, digital safe, ironing board and iron, and blow dryer add to the amenities. A coffee maker and a microwave allow guests to look after their most basic needs. Ice machines on different floors provide the necessary cooling power for a private evening retreat with champagne.

The hallways are decorated in a sophisticated sage green colour scheme and the carpet is of upscale quality. After the renovation, the number of rooms was reduced to 211 guest rooms, down from the original 242 rooms. The extra space was taken up by the conference rooms and the yoga / fitness studio.

Steps away in suite 601, Brian illustrated the conveniences of a private bedroom featuring a queen size bed and a sofa pullout bed in the sitting room. A queen-size suite can therefore accommodate up to four people. High-tech reading lights can be angled in any direction, and the alarm clock radio comes with an Ipod / MP3 docking station. Flat panel TVs are available in the bedroom and the sitting room. All the vanity areas feature attractive dark wood cabinets, all adorned with real orchids. Upscale soaps and toiletries pamper the guests, and bottled water is complimentary.

To conclude the tour, Brian and Danny gave me a few tips for exploring San Diego: Balboa Park, the San Diego Zoo, Seaworld, Old Town, Seaport Village and Coronado are among the most popular local tourist attractions. The upscale area of La Jolla and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography are a little further afield. I was already looking forward to joining tomorrow morning’s tour through the Gaslamp District, offered free by the Sofia Hotel. A visit to Balboa Park would round out our adventures in San Diego.

Not only had we found a great central location in San Diego; by staying at the Sofia Hotel we had also connected with local history and discovered a unique place that has tastefully preserved a 1920s property and brought it into the new millennium with top-notch modern amenities.

Susanne Pacher is a Travel Journalist specializing in Unconventional Travel you can get tons of great unconventional and unique travel information and tips if you Click Here

If I were to build a time machine, it would have a very straightforward design.  It would have a square base with four isosceles triangles as its walls.  Its interior would be filled with a dense material of great mass such as granite or limestone.   Despite our Hollywood inspired conditioned image of a time machine, my time machine would be void of any electronic gadgetry.  Simply put, my time machine would resemble the Great Pyramid in Egypt.  If we take an analytical view of my equation, Rainer’s Time Longevity Equation, we note that Time (T) is a factor of Distance (D), Mass (M), and the inverse of Energy (E).

Rainer’s Time Longevity Equation

T=√D2x M x 1/E   

We can obviously travel forward in time by traveling on a very fast space ship (increased D).  Our personal clock would slow to a near standstill while those residing on earth would continue to tick away.  We could also freeze our bodies to nearly absolute zero, thus significantly reducing our basal metabolic rates (a decrease in E).  Obviously, not the most comfortable experience imaginable.  Lastly, we could build an enormous pyramid like structure with a very high mass(increase M).  The inside chamber could be equipped with a ventilation chamber system to allow access to air and food.  Sound familiar?  The Great Pyramids of Egypt exactly match this description. 

If we were to test our time machine by placing a five year old child in its chamber, an outsider gazing into the pyramid’s inner chamber would note that the child barely aged even after ten years.  However, the child peering out of the pyramid would note that his observers on the outside of the pyramid would grow old quickly before his eyes.    In addition, if the child wore a wrist watch, the time on his watch would be substantially behind the time on the outside of the pyramid once he emerged. The boy would have in fact traveled into the future.  Time is relative and the pyramid has the capacity to alter time on its interior relative to its exterior due to its extremely large Mass (M).

An interesting modern day experiment would involve the use of extremely accurate Atomic Clocks.  These clocks have the capacity to measure time within the thousands of milliseconds.  Let’s assume that we synchronize the time for two Atomic Clocks on the exterior of the Great Pyramid.  One of the Atomic Clocks would be placed in the innermost chamber of the Great Pyramid while the other atomic clock would be placed outside the pyramid.  After one month or longer, the recorded time from the atomic clock retrieved from the interior of the great pyramid would be notably behind the atomic clock’s time on the exterior of the Great Pyramid.  Hence, the pyramid served as a time machine, slowing time in its interior relative to time outside the pyramid.

Additionally, a second experiment could involve the life span of mice living in the interior of the Great Pyramid versus those living outside the pyramid.  Mice living in the interior of the Great Pyramid would be noted to outlive mice living on the pyramid’s exterior given that water and food remain readily available. 

Although modern physicists have noted that time slows near large masses, they have, and I believe incorrectly so, stated this phenomenon  to be due to ‘gravitational red shift.’   I assert that large masses distort space which secondarily increases the Time variable.  Furthermore, rapid forward movement (D) and energy (E) reduction also have a magnifying effect on Time (T).

The Great Pyramids are in fact time machines.  Whether the pyramids possessed the capacity to hurl time travelers hundreds or thousands of years into the future remains to be seen.  However, Egyptian Pharaohs may have used the pyramids to extend their life span i.e. a fountain of youth. Maybe the pyramids were used to buy time for those diagnosed with incurable cancers.  In any event, there remains no reason why similar structures could not be used today for similar purposes.

Naturally, if we erected pyramids of greater height and significantly greater mass, the efficacy of our time machine would substantially improve. 

Unfortunately, the price tag of our pyramid time machine would run into the trillions.  If we elected to build a time machine on a budget, we could, in fact, try another approach.  By burrowing underground we can capitalize on the mass of the earth and thus increase the mass (M) variable.  Secondly, if we burrowed in an arctic region of the globe, we could also capitalize on the Energy  reduction component (decrease E) of Rainer’s time longevity equation. 

Hence, a time machine on a budget would be a chamber deep into the earth’s interior with the potential to reach sub zero temperatures.

During World War II, German Nazis transported over 250,000 scientist and military staff and personnel to a region between 20 degrees East and 10 degrees West in Queen Maud land in Antarctica.  The nazis named this Antarctic region Neuschwabenland.  

Was Neuschwabenland modern man’s first attempt at building a time machine?  Perhaps on second thought, does an Antarctica time machine already exist?

Robert E. Rainer, MD, is a graduate of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He completed his residency training in obstetrics and gynecology in 1995 and shortly afterward established his medical practice (see: http://www.robertrainermd.com/ ). Dr. Rainer\’s practice flourished and is now a leading OB/GYN practice in New York City.