Not seen on MSM

"The bailout is bullshit! You broke it, you bought it"

I haven't noticed anything in the news about this rally on Wall Street in NY. Not so much as a peep.

Overachieving bird

Frigging bird.

Bloody Arm

I have to walk next to that frigging wall. Tonight, I lightly grazed the wall with its pointy rocks for decoration and got the following.

Don't tell me I don't give my all for my company. The cut is actually very small. It did bleed down my arm.

Deliberate Ignorance

Keywords: capitalism, congress, failure, president, economy, bailout, catastrophe, credit

Capitalist civilization teeters on collapse and our representatives are pointing fingers. Even before the vote yesterday Pelosi took center stage and used the occasion to point out perceived failures of the current administration. I'm ill from it. Congress really is the opposite of progress.

I hear that representatives are getting an earful from their constituents that some very rich people need to go broke, or end up in jail. I'm all about that. I would love to hold a parade of fat cats down main street on their way to club fed. It will not happen. Who do you think run this country, regular people?

Congress is out today and tomorrow for Rosh Hashanah, a Jewish holiday. Yippee. I frigging hate these rich out of touch self centered humans.  Did I mention I'm ill from it? The world will not end this afternoon. The economy is going to "gasp for air" today and tomorrow. The holiday break will be blamed for the beginning of the end of the world as we know it. The Jews will get blamed again. Shame.

I don't have today and tomorrow off. Congress should declare an emergency session and do something about this catastrophe in mid bloom. You know,  before it is too late. Before it gets so bad that the MSM runs out of scary words to describe it.

it wasn't really party lines that killed the vote either. One commenter said it was conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats who bolted. Each had their reasons. Something about the Republicans wanting value for the taxpayer's money and perhaps something about punishment for fat-cats, and Democrats wanting a plan for 'victims' who are loosing their houses. Those both sound good to me.

The podcasts I had today had interviews with McCain and Obama over the weekend before the failed vote. They were both all about their campaigns. I don't know why time was wasted on them on this subject. I would shout to fire both of the, but they haven't been hired yet. Tells me we are in even deeper trouble than we think. My God! the next president will be a politician.

Some say this trouble doesn't affect them because they have a fixed mortgage rate and their retirement is already in the tank. It will affect their job, or the lack there of because people cannot start businesses on credit or cover bad times with credit. It will affect every time you try to buy things because it will limit choice because manufacturers and distributors cannot barrow money to make and move product. It will affect all this and  more because we have not been a cash economy for many decades. The trouble is, every one has been buying on credit and paying it back. Now they are going to have to go toward saving up first, then paying. Not for everything, but more than they did. The transition of that first saving period is going to bring the economy to it's knees. We have already lived the other side. Every one spent their savings on stuff, then borrowed to get more stuff. Now the piper comes a-calling.

Very Local News

• I watched a couple of shows on hulu.com last night that I hadn't seen. I'm getting to the point that I do not watch TV any more. I mean not at all. I can get the couple of TV shows that I watch online now. I may not even bother upgrading the TV in the bedroom with a digital box. No, I need the morning news.
• I never did a tribute to Paul Newman. He was a good actor. I like his work. He was a good man.  I like the story of him having toilet paper with pictures of other high end actors on it. I like his charity work too. Hell of a guy. A friend of mine is putting together a video/slide show. I might post it if I hear when it is done.
  
• I'm told I need to put a key words area at the top of my posts. I'll try it. I don't really have enough readers to worry about complaints. I've tried it a couple times. There must be a syntax to it I'm missing.
  
• Indian food for dinner. Nice for an occasional meal. I couldn't eat it every day. It was TV dinner Indian food.
• Elle is off with her grandfather in the morning while Nat waits around for the inspector. We might know tomorrow just how much this whole thing is going to cost us. I have no idea where to find trusty contractors.
  

Fake but True

I HAVE DECIDED TO BECOME A WRITE-IN CANDIDATE. HERE IS MY PLATFORM: ( 1.) Press 1 for English is immediately banned. English is the official language; speak it or wait at the border until you can. ( 2.) We will immediately go into a two year isolationist posture to straighten out the country's attitude. NO imports, no exports. We will use the 'Walmart' policy, 'If we ain't got it, you don't need it.' ( 3.) When imports are allowed, there will be a 100% import tax on it. ( 4.) All retired military personnel will be required to man one of our many observation towers on the southern border. (six month tour) They will be under strict orders not to fire on SOUTHBOUND aliens. ( 5.) Social securitywill immediately return to its original state. If you didn't put nuttin in, you ain't gettin nuttin out. The president nor any other politician will not be able to touch it. ( 6.) Welfare - Checks will be handed out on Fridays at the end of the 40 hour school week and the successful completion of urinalysis and a passing grade. ( 7.) Professional Athletes - Steroids - The FIRST time you check positive you're banned for life. ( 8.) Crime - We will adopt the Turkish method, the first time you steal, you lose your right hand. There is no more life sentences. If convicted, you will be put to death by the same method you chose for your victim; gun, knife, strangulation, etc. ( 9.) One export will be allowed...Wheat. The world needs to eat. A bushel of wheat will be the exact price of a barrel of oil. (10.) All foreign aid using American taxpayer money will immediately cease, and the saved money will pay off the national debt and ultimately lower taxes. When disasters occur around the world, we'll ask the American people if they want to donate to a disaster fund, and each citizen can make the decision whether it's a worthy cause. (11.) The Pledge of Allegiance will be said every day at school and every day in Congress. (12.) The National Anthem will be played at all appropriate ceremonies, sporting events, outings, etc. Sorry if I stepped on anyone's toes, but a vote for me will get you better than what you have, and better than what you're gonna get. Thanks for listening, and remember to write in my name on the ballot in November. God Bless America!!!!!!!!!!! Bill Cosby!!!!!!!! Snops

Supposidly, Bill Cosby said these things. He didn't. Fake, but I like it. My dad sent me this.

Another Joke

TODAY'S CLEAN LAUGH *Free Will* A young couple came into the church office to fill out a pre-marriage questionnaire form. The young man, who had never talked to a pastor before, was quite nervous and the pastor tried to put him at ease. When they came to the question, "Are you entering this marriage of your own free will?" there was a long pause. Finally, the girl looked over at the apprehensive young man and said, "Put down yes."

Amanda sent me this one. I just didn't want to make another entry.

Very Local News

• Faire is coming up soon. We are very broke. I have to spend every dime on bills. Blah blah blah. I bet Faire is a bit light this year from so many people being in the same boat.
• Apple Bee's said they need to straighten up; improve the food, improve the business. They need to improve the food. I remember saying they made the rare accomplishment of being greasy, yet bland.
  
• Dow 600 points down before lunch. Classy. I've already lost money over all in my 401-K. Why not wipe me out all together?
• Whiteboard (dry erase board) shiny surfaces are made from melanin. Melanin is very close to the same chemical as many proteins. On some simple tests, it will look like protein. It is hard and sticky. It gums up your kiddies if you eat it, causing problems sometimes years on. China needs to improve its regulatory system several steps. The children are simply the first stage of this epidemic.
  
• Democracy doesn't work.
  
• Hitler was a change candidate.
• Mussolini was a change candidate
• Caesar was a party line candidate
• Jesus was elected messiah by a comity in the centuries after his death.
• Gandhi (as far as I remember) never ran for office anywhere.
• The Dalai Lama is simply found somehow.
  
• I had another bout with bad upgrade remnants left over from upgrading from Fedora 7 to 8 to 9. One of the programs on my machine prevented YUM from upgrading to the latest stuff. Then, when attempting to remove it, there was an error. The argument --noscripts comes to the rescue again. The Fedora folks really need to pay better attention to people who do not do a fresh install every time. No wonder no one ever upgrades.
  

Financial Catastrophe

Will the bailout work? Will our government drop a pare and bitch slap some of the billionaires who give all the correct representatives so much money every election season? Will people at the bottom tighten their belts? Will people in the middle and top tighten their belts? - I doubt it.

The way the commentates make it sound, we can expect a postapocalyptic crumble of all things that require money. They seem to take the Gremlin's advice and shout from th highest floor to invest in canned food and shotguns.

No company goes out of business for lack of prophet. They go out of business for running out of cash and credit to pay the bills. If a company can't make payroll, people stop working. If a company can't pay  the suppliers, they stop supplying. If the bank is willing to loan the company money for an extended period, the company goes in to huge debt, but stays in business for as long as the bank is willing to loan it cash or extend it credit.

When banks refuse to loan money because they are unsure of their own investment to back that loaned up, the whole system grinds to a halt. That is what the bailout is supposed to avoid. This is why the Great Depression started some time after the stock market  crash. Didn't it take a world war to get us out of the last depression?

Nat and I are broke. I've said I cannot go camping this year. I cannot afford tickets. I cannot afford all the camping crap we need. I cannot afford food and alcohol. I can certainly afford nothing inside the park. As much as I will hate missing out on the fun of hanging out with friends, I just can't do it. Nat is looking for a job at Faire to compensate her expenses.

Shit that happened recently
Ike	$1000
Dance lessons	$1000
Debt consolidation	$550
Insurance deductible	$1300
Other repairs	$???

A bunch of shit is all hitting the fan at the same time. No fucking wonder so many people are going under.

Fat boy got skills

I'm impressed. Just how stretchy is that ring? Or, did he pull a fast one and slip it off very quickly. I can't tell.

Simulous Effect

This is the problem with stimulus checks. Once the barrier, or economic downturn, is gone the want for someone to take care of you is still there.

Jail Break

That's one talented ... tongue you got there poocy.

XM25

I saw some hint of this or another similar weapon last year some time.

It is a repeating grenade launcher. There must be dozens of kinds of ammo for it. It is small, and handy. The shells can be set to go exactly X far and then go off, or go off a couple meters after hitting something (inside the room on the other side of a wall or window). Nice idea. Very Starship Troupers. I like it. I swear I came up with Starship Troupers before I saw the same comparison in one of the articles below.)

Another potential replacement for the M-16/M-4.

After nearly a decade in the shadows - with billions spent on earlier versions long since abandoned - the Army is hurtling along to field a revolutionary new weapon to Joes a lot sooner than anyone had ever imagined. It's a weapon that can take out a bad guy behind a wall, beyond a hill or below a trench, more accurately and with less collateral damage than anything on the battlefield today, officials say. It's called the XM25 Individual Air Burst Weapon, and by next month the service will have three prototypes of the precision-guided 25mm rifle ready for testing. ... "What we're talking about is a true 'leap ahead' in lethality, here. This is a huge step," Audette added during a phone interview with Military.com from his office at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey. Defense Tech (quote)

Link

Here is a scenario that runs through my head. Bad guys firing on a convoy from a building. Fire a grenade through each window without even considering which the shooters might be behind. Then going on about your day.

Night patrol stumbling on a convoy of enemy moving from one hide out to another. Don't bother Who needs an air strike. Just crack a couple rounds over that way and fill in the report.

As soon as they increase the effective range beyond a kilometer or so, snipers will clean up entire platoons at an outing.

The secret is in the site and computer that talks to the round before it fires. Sets range and whatever else is settable. I read somewhere that a computer in a site would calculate a range and correction for moving targets and produce a synthetic target for the shooter to aim at when they pull the trigger. The XM25 would benefit greatly from this if it exists. Just a suggestion.

Natalie feels Better

Natalie went to a couple doctors and got some medicine. The medicine is helping. When I woke her up this morning she was civil and didn't bite my head off. She seems to have much more energy. She looks happier. She is giggling at jokes and playing games online.

Some folks suggested her ailment was rooted in hypochondria. I disagree. The placebo effect of getting new medicine would not have covered her attitude being woken up this morning. Trust me.

She has lost five lb in the last week. She has been trying to loose some weight without success for some time. It looks like we may have finally found the problem causing her so much stress. It has to do with her thyroid.

Yay! Natalie is happy again. We are off to the movies. I don't care if we can't afford it.

More on data retention

So, I've been using Google Docs for all of forty five minutes and I noticed something. It doesn't suck and I have nowhere near the amount of data to keep track of that I thought. Once I busted the data up in to folders, it looked very small. It is very small. I haven't put a copy of my contacts in the document section because my contacts are in Gmail which is basically attached to Google docs.

I may keep a diary in there that has the real scoop on things that will not come out until I'm dead. (haha)  I would put things in there that piss me off about others. I would name names. I would rant in that special way that might get me in trouble in public. ... Maybe not. Google docs is far to easy to hack.

I wonder how other people keep track of important things.

Google Docs (revisited)

I would like to use google docs for editing my blog stuff, but I cannot. It will not let me save embedded objects. That is how you put videos on your site. I mean, you can't even save them that way. The code just goes away. This is one limitation of Google docs I can live with. There are plenty. Google docs definitely permits data retention. That is a real need of mine that I only just came to terms with.

Ike taught me that I need to rethink my personal document needs. I need a way to have my documents on demand from places where I can access the internet. Carrying a key-drive around is no substitute for access. Before I start this infinite data collection, I need to make sure I can download the information in a usable form and store it locally in case google goes the way of Enron and just drops from the scene over night.

• Contacts
• Doctor/medical information
• Medication
• Test results
• Research and links.
  
• House information
• Computer information
• Notes about dealing with places like the phone company and energy company et al.
• Ticket numbers of events to establish a history of habitual crap that I want fixed.
  
• Diary (log) of events.
• When I call the owners or the county on the field next to my house.
• When I call on Westheimer to get it mowed.
• When I call the cops on the racers and the results.

The blog entries may not work, but for keeping notes about my life, Google docs should work fine.

Very Local News

• I've always thought Wamu (Washington Mutual) had a stupid name. They just went broke. I've always hated Chase bank because I thought they were evil about milking their customers for every dime. Chase just bought Wamu. Damn it. it is being called the largest bank failure in U. S. history.
  
• I have nothing to say on Twitter. My life is so boring that I have nothing going on. Not even enough to send twenty words to Twitter. I suppose it could be worse. I might have bad news.
• This weekend is very welcome. I need a weekend. I really hope nothing interferes with this weekend. I hope Nat and I can find something fun and cheap to do for fun. We need it. Should be good weather they say.
  
• One of my duties at work is to download the latest versions of operating systems and burn them to CD./DVD. Now we buy computers that do not have either. First the floppy went the way of the Dodo. Now the only two media forms that work are network and USB media. This is a drag in some cases. Such is progress.
  
• We ran out of bottled water at work. These are the big Sparkletts brand bottles. It's funny how people people get desperate and start hording. The soda supply (free at work) started dwindling instantly. There was an unofficial announcement when the water supply was stocked. All the headless water coolers re-headed.\
• It was nice outside this afternoon at lunch. The temp was not too hot. A breeze was blowing. A partly cloudy sky kept the direct sun at bay at just the right level. Nice.

Test post, please ignore

This is a test of the Kelly Broadcast System.

This is my quote inside a table.

This is a test of paragraph text.

This is a block quote (default)

After block quote normal text.

Very Local News

• I set Nat and I up on unlimited text messaging for a month or two. I've gone nuts and have barely broken 800. The only way to communicate during Ike was text message so there have been high numbers. I'll probably call next month and get it knocked down to the 1000 plan just to be sure. That will save a couple bucks a month over the unlimited one.  Most of my friends just are not in to that much SMS.
  
• Lunch
  
• Nat came up to work for lunch today. That was nice. It was a surprise. I like those every now and again.
• She brought Italian food. yum.
• The topic of discussion was the economy and Ike damage and recovery. Nat said she likes it better when we talk about role playing games.
• I nearly fell asleep at the lunch table. I didn't get my walk. Nat said we should have gone for the walk.
  
• 168,000 ants per human on Earth. I believe it.
• 5% of the U. S. workforce officially work two or more jobs. The real number is higher. I have had offers to work two jobs in every job I've ever worked except the stocker job I had in high school.
  
• There are like fifty videos a week of people totaling their bikes while attempting some sort of wheelie. There were like five videos of motorcycle wrecks or near wrecks featured on LiveLeak this evening. Crazy stuff.

And another one

750 cc engine on a Vespa scooter.

Talk about a crotch rocket. Watch your balls buddy. My end up in the carburetors.

Suzuki engine in a Smart Car

There might be a market for these things yet. If you need to work on the bottom of the car, just flip it over. Who needs a rack?

Itty-bitty car with a great big engine ...

Why not put a little GO! in a go-cart?

Blog Woes

What is this blog buying me? I thought about it and I spend a lot of time tapping away on this page. I get no money. There is no prestige. My friends don't really read that much. I have maybe five pretty consistent readers. Maybe Elle can read this one day and learn a bit about her "Kelly Daddy". In fact, there is a far higher likelihood that something I say on this blog will get me fired or beaten up or indicted.

I get a sense of satisfaction from this blog that I just don't get anywhere else. I gripe and moan. No one comes to my rescue. That's fine. That isn't what the blog is about. It is a place to vent a little. It is a place to shout from the rooftop. It is my soapbox. It keeps me from ranting so much to my friends. It is a place to ask "What do you think of that?" or "Who do they think they are?" It is a place to prey publicly. It is a place praise publicly. it is a place to make fun of others. It is a place to kick a rock down the road.

It is a place to announce happenings. It is a place to bounce ideas. It is a place to toot my own horn. It is a place to be depressed. it is a place to keep track of some of the random crap that buzzes around my head. That is a  big one. Some of the things that just pass by are pretty good. Normally, they would vanish in the firmament. My passing ideas may just end up here.

I would love to write something real. I mean a novel or other book. There is no one subject that I know enough about to fill enough pages for a book I think. I cannot keep my head on one subject long enough to write a novel. When I write short stories, the turn in to rants before the end. That or they have no middle part. I would write poetry, but it is mostly horrible and incoherent.

I quote news or other people a bit. This is so I can rip them a new asshole or say "me too". I've had a couple people say they do not even pay any attention to these sections. The folks I talk to say they want to know what is going on in my life, not what is going around the world. Then again, one says he gets his news through the Kelly-filter. Poor guy.

I put a lot of videos up now. It is a neat way to point and grunt at some content. Lately, the bar raised a bit. I don't just put three or four videos on the blog just because I can. I used to.

This blog is more than a diary. It is a communication device.  A diary is not supposed to be written with the intention of being read real time by others. A blog is designed for that.  This is a subtle, but very important distinction. My parents nearly bought me a laptop because I kept ranting about which one I wanted at the time. I didn't let them. dammit.

Sometimes it seems like the sound and tactile feel of pounding on the keyboard and filling the screen with text are the goal. This may have some merit. There is a small sense of accomplishment in just getting data down on the page/screen. There is more to this blog than leaving some footprints on the world wide web, I hope.

So, why do I care when I get six hits in a day? If I have this blog and keep it up to date for all the above reasons, why do I have a mechanism for counting eyes?

Meltdown

Right now if I walk up to someone and ask "What are your thoughts on 'the meltdown'?" They will know I'm talking about the trouble in the U. S. economy. I'm pretty sure the phrase 'meltdown' came in to the lexicon around Three Mile Island sometime in the seventies. The phrase means, from my experience, a complete catastrophic failure of some mechanism or system.

I bet more people will die from the Wall Street meltdown from heart attacks than Three Mile Island.

A person might have a meltdown.  I've had a couple myself. I've had computers have meltdowns. A couple of those lead to my meltdowns. Talk about a chain reaction. Why, just the other day a plastic spoon had a meltdown while I was heating some Spaghettios in the microwave at work. I learned from this experience and now, do not put the cheep plastic spoons in the microwave when heating.

Normally, meltdown stories are much better than that.

Very Local News

• Everyone at work has seen Heroes. I missed it because Nat had the TV. I'll probably catch it tonight on hulu.com if it is available. I ran through the room with fingers in my ears mumbling "shut-up .. shut-up."
• "its" vs "it's": "it's" = it is, "its" = everything else. If you stick with that rule, you will get it right 98% of the time.
• Nat got a good diagnosis today. Hopefully she will be back on track pretty soon. I'll let her publicize it or not. Thank you for your prayers.
• Nat is really happy tonight. She has multiple season premieres to watch. Something like three hours worth.
  

Blue Roof

As I stand on top of the parking garage and take a long look around the lower west side of Houston I cannot help but notice the latest fashion in roof decoration. The humble tarp. I could have looked in any direction and caught at least one blue roof. A couple friends are in this situation. We may be too if the inspector gives us a hard time about it.

Trailer

Nat is warming up to the idea of a small trailer. She went by the U-Haul place to get a box or two and noticed the advertisement about trailer hitches and small trailers behind small cars. Yes! I like the idea because it means we can get by without a truck or SUV for a while.

The trailer I have my eye on is 4x6. I'm pretty sure we could haul some 4x8 sheets of plywood in it if need be. It has a 2000 lb weight limit and most likely a 200 lb ball weight limit. That is standard for all those little cars.

Mainly I want to use it for things like Faire. We could pack tent, tables, chairs, coolers, propane,  grill, camp box full of the little crap all on the trailer. Leave the trunk for cloths and soft goods including food or whatnot. As long as things are packed evenly, this setup would put us nowhere near the limits.

It will also come in handy when doing anything around the house. We can't cart home a set of shelves right now because the car won't hold them. Well, that and we are broke.

I'm going to have to store the trailer in the back yard. The only way I have to get it back there is to carry it through the gate. Not sure I can do that. Maybe when we rebuild the fence, I can put in a hidden wide gate somewhere. Now, that is a thought.

Walking Stick

I bought a walking stick at REI a couple months ago. It works pretty well. i use it every day. I don't so much need it for limping, but stumbling. I use it for balance across all the rough ground I traverse on my way in to work. I use the stick so much that the steel tip is warring down. There are heavy scuff marks on the tubes where the locking mechanism digs in when the stick is extended. it telescopes for storage. I carry it on my back pack. I would rather have it in my hand when getting around the bus because I'm afraid of poking someone with that metal tip.

I've only had the staff since Spring. It will probably not last a year. I'm going to have to come up with another solution at some point. I worry this thing will not give me any warning before just plane failing.

As Winter quickly approaches, I will need to use my flashlight to flag my position to cars. This will prevent me from using the walking stick I bet. I haven't tried it yet. Maybe they work together. The flashlight idea works great to prevent my being run over by half asleep commuters.

A walking stick is not fashionable.  I'm sure I look like an old man stumbling down the street. This morning my knees hurt for some unknown reason. That added to my normal stumble which is worse in late Summer and Fall. Then there is the uneven ground of the construction area and unkept roadside. Not to mention the mosquitoes trying to carry me off. I worry people think I'm a kook wondering around off my medication.

Hurricane Education: What I've learned during our last hurricane

1. Coffee and frozen pizzas can be made on a BBQ grill. 2. No matter how many times you flick the switch, lights don't work without electricity. 3. My car gets 23.21675 miles per gallon, EXACTLY (you can ask the people in line who helped me push it). 4. Kids can survive 4 days or longer without a video game controller in their hand. 5. Cats are even more irritating without power. 6. He who has the biggest generator wins. 7. Women can actually survive without doing their hair- you just wish they weren't around you. 8. A new method of non-lethal torture- showers without hot water. 9. There are a lot more stars in the sky than most people thought. 10. TV is an addiction and the withdrawal symptoms are painful. 11. A 7 lb bag of ice will chill 6-12 oz Budweiser's to a drinkable temperature in 11 minutes, and still keep a 14 lb. turkey frozen for 8 more hours. 12. There are a lot of dang trees around here. 13. Flood plan drawings on some mortgage documents were seriously wrong.. 14. Aluminum siding, while aesthetically pleasing, is definitely not required. 15. Crickets can increase their volume to overcome the sound of 14 generators. 16. People will get into a line that has already formed without having any idea what the line is for. 17. When required, a Lincoln Continental will float, doesn't steer well but floats just the same. 18. Tele-marketers function no matter what the weather is doing. 19. Cell phones work when land lines are down, but only as long as the battery remains charged. 20. 27 of your neighbors are fed from a different transformer than you, and they are quick to point that out! 21. Hampers were not made to contain such a volume. 22. If my store sold only ice, chainsaws, gas and generators... I'd be rich. 23. Price of a can of soup rises 200% in a storm. 24. Your water front property can quickly become someone else's fishing hole. 25. Tree service companies are under appreciated. 26. I learned what happens when you make fun of another states' blackout. 27. MATH 101: 30 days in month, minus 6 days without power equals 30% higher electric bill ????? 28. Drywall is a compound word, take away the "dry" part and it's worthless. 29. I can walk a lot farther than I thought.

Top ten reasons hurricane season is like Christmas

10: Decorating the house (with plywood). 9: Dragging out boxes that haven't been used since last season. 8: Last minute shopping in crowded stores. 7: Regular TV shows pre-empted for 'Specials'. 6: Family coming to stay with you. 5: Family and friends from out of state calling you. 4: Buying food you don't normally buy . . . and in large quantities. 3: Days off from work. 2: Candles. And the Number One reason Hurricane Season is like Christmas: 1: At some point you're probably going to have a tree in your house!

Very Local News

• I need to do something about the mosquitoes on the commute in. Harris county says they are spraying, but the mosquitoes don't seem to be upset about it. We have some Deep Woods Off, but I'll smell like bug spray all day. What is a pedestrian to do?
• U. S. tax payers are going to have to make up for foreign banks losses as well as the U. S. banks. That just sounds like a load of crap to me.
• One of my coworkers came in with a bag full of microwave popcorn. His kids didn't like the taste. I like it just fine. Thanks lack of taste buds.
  
• I listened to six "Wakeup To Money" from the BBC and "APM Marketplace" podcasts marathon style today while working. I have to say that I feel caught up on the whole U. S. financial debacle.
• Now I want some kind of Blackbury or smart phone or something. I cannot use an iPhone because I do not use Windows or Mac. I may  be wrong, but I think a smart phone accepts software other than that with which it came. This means many Blackbury type phones, though capable are not 'smart' phones.
  

Ike Slideshow

Huricane Ike slideshow.

hulu.com

You can watch and embed TV shows and clips for free. I do not agree that having to watch commercials means it is free, but you take what you can get in this greedy capitalist society.

By the way, I got this site from a sixerdoodle twitter post. Thanks. He was excited about Speed Racer.

UPS Pow-Wow

This happens in the Target parking lot across from our building every couple of weeks. I've seen one with nearly twice this many trucks but didn't get a picture. This has got to have something to do with balancing packages or correcting some kind of fowlup or something.

Maybe the smaller truck in the middle was bringing everyone lunch. I'm intrigued.

This picture has been altered from the original in the following ways. It has been cropped, resized, and the brightness and contrast have been modified because it was taken through the office window that has some screwball tint.

Hurricane Ike Pictures

Link

The hurricane

Snapshots taken from boredom

Some damage shots

Apologies for it taking so long to get these up. I have been deliberately lazy all day. I need some down time for God's sake. I'm in debt after this stupid storm. I had to work yesterday. Got a bunch of hard stuff coming up. Woe is me. Anyway, Pictures are up.

Very calm

These folks are awfully calm for plummeting. I have to say, that when plummeting, I am not so quiet.

Well stuck landing I must say.

Sunday

Today is the first Sunday that can be called normal after hurricane Ike. It is living up to that claim with zeal. I mowed the front. I'm drinking a soda. I sit in the air conditioning. I'm reading blogs. Nat is playing some FaceBook game about building an empire. I'm telling her she needs to get WOW. She would love it. I all but dread going back to work tomorrow because I just need some rest. The time off last week was spent running for our lives, hold up in someone else's home, or worrying about making things work post-Ike. There was no rest.

I need a vacation. I never take vacations. I hate coming back from vacations. I don't want to go back to w life. I feel that my life should not be so stressful that I need a vacation.

Today rocks as relaxation goes. It was difficult to get myself motivated to mow the yard. I would love to do the pictures I took for Ike. I'm just too lazy. Today is cool though. I must remember this when I'm busting my ass tomorrow.

Merlin is not the only printer-crazed cat

Our cat does something like this. He does more staring than hitting.

Dent

Yes, the guy on the bike is pissed off. What did the person in the car do to the person on the bike to evoke this insanity? No innocents here.

Very Local News

• All blue eyed people are descendant from one woman who had a mutant gene. Genetics were checked from blue eyed people in northern Europe and the Middle East ans sure enough, the numbers line up.
• I'm trying yahoo mobile alerts. it is a pain in the ass. I'm going to kill it.
• The trouble with instant messaging was A) you had to be on your computer. and B) everyone signed in to see who was on, then signed out.  SMS has neither of those disadvantages. It is harder to type and read.

Things missed

It is funny what I missed over the hurricane. One of the only things that I did not get that I kind of miss is some news. I didn't get a bunch of details about all the financial crap going on.  I feel like I missed something. The vast majority of everything else feels like water under the bridge. I want to know what is going on in the markets though.

When I download podcasts, the software grabs all it can that it knows has not been downloaded yet. This is a problem when I am out of the loop for a week. It downloads a couple hundred podcasts, only a couple of which I really want to listen to all the way through. These are things like The Writer's Almanac, Wakeup to Money and the BBC film reviews. There are probably some others. Most of them I will just let flow under the bridge.

One of the guys at work described his Ike adventures to me. His place is butted right up to a bunch of trees and his neighbor has been out of town for a while and did not bring in all the stuff on her balcony. His power, cable and internet were out for days. The first couple of hours were tough. That first Saturday evening was hot and humid.

The storm did no damage that he knows of to his place. He was just camping a couple of days in his living room. He said that he listened to a football game on the battery radio. Red books by candle light. Ended up with all the windows open. When the power came back on, he was grateful, but felt a little nostalgic.

I wonder hoe many of those kids who all roamed around my parent's neighborhood are still out of doors having fun in the sunshine five minutes after cable and internet switch back on.

Very Local News

• I need to prop up the sagging fence. I think our adjuster comes on October first.
• Got Twitter going. I'm not sure you you can find me without joining up. I don't know if I'll stick with it or not.
  
• I wish Twitter or someone would let me just take a picture or video and send it straight to the web without asking me anything. Just post it.
• Not sure I like Twitter. It is really just for telling how your day is going.  I wish I could straight up blog and do the media thing mentioned above without a computer. I'm sure someone will get around to offering it.
  
• I'm not nearly as sore as I thought I would be after splitting wood. maybe it will hit me tomorrow. I'll be at work so no big deal.
• It is so nice to have internet back. We need a way to charge our mobile phones and surf the net with no electricity.
• "Hundreds of billions" needed to fix the financial system from the U. S. taxpayer. To pay off a bunch of millionaire/billionaire thieves. I'm not pleased. I want some very rich people to go to jail. I'm talking don't bend over for the soap prison, not club-fed.
  
• Nat hunted down some free tarps for the back of the house. I wanted to ask her if she knew where to get some free 2x4s while she was at it.
• The text Google thing also does unit conversions.
• Send a text that says "75 knots in mph" to 466452 and it will tell you "86.3 mph". Cool stuff.
• It works with currency too.
• I'd love to get the Ike pictures up. I'm just too frigging busy.
• Traffic on Westheimer was murder. It was nut-to-butt the whole way home. I walked out the door of work right at 18:00. I didn't walk in the door until 19:55. Stepped in cat vomit and nearly broke my neck.
  

Oh, my God

I have nothing to say.

Amazing little dog

It doesn't look fake to me. Scrappy little fella.

OK Ike video

Before during and after. Not too shabby.

Some stuff that happened during Ike

There was a story on the news of I10 I bereave it was being shut down long enough for some high tension wires to be strung across the road.

One side effect of the storm was some camaraderie. There was a pack of kids on bicycles roaming the neighborhood back and forth. It was very reminiscent of my childhood. They played ball in the street. They biked all over the place. They hung out next to a pile of bicycles in someone's front yard. It was really cool to watch.

We had damage to our fence, the back wall of our house and a couple loose shingles. The back wall of the house let some water through to the carpet. I believe it was due to the huge amount of water building up at the back of the house. The fence may be a right off. It is bent and broken and just sort of hanging there. It sucked to begin with.

Our electricity was out and Nat got the great idea of calling the little bar across the street to find out if they had power before we blundered our way home just to find no electricity. Then, she made me call back and ask the same question to make sure we had the right location.

Old Indian wild cherry cough syrup tastes like gasoline and celery.

Yesterday, the power blinked at my parent's place. Elle shook her head and said "Oh, no!!" Elle then led my mother around the house making sure the lights were still on. Elle spent most of the weekend on her new bike. The old bike she had was much too small for her. My parents convinced Elle to leave the old bike at the end of the driveway with a sign that read "Free to a good home. -Elle" or something liike that. Some guys picked it up and were off. Elle was quite upset when she figured out that the bell was still on the old bike.

I dreampt i could fly again. In the dream, I woke and could still fly. Now that's a dream.

Ike takes a back seat to the wallet

I'm not going to blog much about Ike. I'm sick of hearing about it. The local news has been flooded with news and hillbillies bitching about 'where my gubment check?'. I'm ill from listening to it for five days. There was some old woman on the phone telling the news chopper which way to pan so she could find her house.

The rest of the country is getting financial news about the collapse of the economy. Ike is taking a back seat. People in other parts of the country have heard about it, but it seems between bits about trillions of dollars disappearing off the financial scene.

Where does all the money go? It goes nowhere. It doesn't exist. All the money they are talking about is wishful thinking and money spent, but not yet earned. It is all so complex that I'm lost.

A bond is a company or bank's way of borrowing money from investors. If you rely on the solvency of just that one company that needs money, you may not invest (lend). So, other companies back (guarantee) the bonds (loans). AIG insured bonds and bit the dust. No one told the investors the guarantor  (AIG) would go belly up if all the bonds (loans from investors) went bad at the same time.

Mortgages have for ever been worshiped as a wonderful stable place to stick your money. That is because house and land prices have been going up for centuries for the most part. People are always going to pay their mortgage before they pay anything else because that is their house. I heard somewhere that Fanny and Freddy together have more money in assets than Great Briton. Everything was swell until the bubble burst and all those loans coming up that people could not afford to pay back. Now those loans are clogging the system.

I heard that the golden parachutes constructed by the CEOs of Fanny and Freddy did not get paid off.The government told the to take a hike. That makes me feel much better for some reason.  I like the idea that the government started firing a bunch of people from the top down in those to quasi government entities. Time for some tough love.

So, when is all the turmoil going to end? Nothing is going to change until every one agrees to use some sort of solid currency in stead of basing our exchange of goods and services on promises and good intentions. I'm not talking gold necessarily. Just because it makes a bigger number on paper is no reason to throw the idea of proper balance of exchange out the window.

There are a lot of comparisons that end with '... since the great depression.' This makes me nerves.

Things I learned about splitting wood

• Even with a chainsaw and a hydraulic wood splitter, splitting wood is the hardest work I've ever done in my life. I was light headed and shaking for physical exertion. If I split one log a week, I would be in better shape than I am now by far.
  
• People from centuries past were better than we are today if they cut and split wood.
• Why have I not been doing push-ups? I need to do my frigging9ing push ups every day.
  
• If you want to get young men to stay in school, hand them a sledge hammer, a couple wedges and a truck load  of wood to split. My father and I nearly did ourselves in splitting like four chunks of wood this afternoon, with a splitter. yikes.
• People frigging disappear when wood splitting starts.
• Green wood, dry wood, it is all hard work. It doesn't matter.
• Brace the splitter against the curb for better balance while cranking.
  
• I can bend the pipe handle on the wood splitter.
• I was so very glad to get the text message to come in this afternoon. I don't mind working a half day. Just as long as it is not splitting wood. I may not be able to make a fist tomorrow.e

Not back up yet

It looks like we still do not have power. We are staying at different friend's places. Finally found an internet connection. No spellchecker. Please forgive me. The electricity a mile in both directions of our house was on last time we checked. That is scary because that is Fort Bend in one direction and Houston in the other direction. Our little section of Harris county gets forgotten every time. I have a reoccuring nighmare that we are one of the people without juice for two weeks.
More coming later.

Hurricane Ike

If it still works the same way, that image will appear to update every so often if you hit refresh. I think so anyway. Click  on the image to get a bunch of cool information about the storm.

This sort of sticks with today's theme of science. Right?

TXU

At TXU Energy, we work hard to keep you informed about issues that may impact your electricity service. Based on current projections from the National Hurricane Center, Hurricane Ike will make landfall along the Texas coast late today or early Saturday and could impact your electricity service. In anticipation of possible electric system outages that could be caused by Hurricane Ike, TXU Energy reminds and encourages our customers to call and report outages, should they occur. The TXU Energy toll-free telephone number for outage reporting is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You should report any outages by calling 1-800-233-2133 so they can be resolved by your local transmission and distribution company. Spanish-speaking customer service representatives are available. Be sure to visit TXU Energy online for helpful power outage information. You're important to us and you can count on us to let you know about issues that matter.

Got an email from TXU.

IKE - First power blip

This is one that gets plaid every time the city floods. It ain't this bad yet by a damn siight.

IKE continued

Officials told people who refused to evacuate the mandatory evacuation area to write their names and SSN on their arms. You know, just in case. This request convinced a couple people to leave. I may write "John Doe" on mine just to be a prick. Twenty thousand people did not evacuate Galveston. They are cutting off emergency services at 21:00 this evening.

I'll be honest, the storm didn't look that bad when the reporter was standing down the street from a house where a guy refused to leave. That is bad. The storm is just now making landfall. The worse has not quite begun. The storm is a bit faster and bit weaker than reported a couple hours ago. The wind estimates were over 90 mph at our house when checked early in the AM. They dropped to 71 mph. Last check they were at 80 mph. I have no idea what that all means.

The motion radar on intellicast is annoying. It is a while out of date. The map that says where the hurricane is, the one at the top of this blog until 8:00 Sunday, is not updated very often.

First comes the storm surge. Then comes the rain bands. Then comes the wind and an even higher storm surge. Then comes a couple of beautiful clear dry days in which we can all recover. Then comes the political blame game and finger pointing. then come the lawsuits.

We have three wind-up radios. New batteries in the flashlights. the camping toilet is ready. We have all the clean water we can store including both bathtubs. We have food that you don't need to cook and some that you do need to cook. We also have a camp stove and some propane. Not enough to last for long. It will keep us going. It will get us started.

Bad form Google

Yesterday Google officially pissed me off. I wasn't this angry when I found out Google was caving to Chinese demands for information and to comply with censorship. Don't be evil. Don't care about the country that spawned you and pays the majority of your bills either.

Preparing still (Ike)

You would think that you get prepared and then sit there and wait for the hurricane to go over. No. Nat is running around the house like a good boyscout still thinking of more stuff to do. I love her.

Elle is concerned that the hurricane will turn the lights off in her room. Forget the rest of the house. I worry she will be freaked out about the storm later. She does not handle storms well sometimes. Poor little thing. I remember myself not a whole lot older than her freaking out about storms and flooding. I suppose it is natural.

Every channel is spewing information about people who did not evacuate. That or there is video of the sea wall or flooded streets in Galveston. Every person left in lower east Texas has been interviewed.

When i was fourteen I remember Alysia and playing in that horrible flood water. I have this picture stuck in my head of a flooded street in front of our house on Cherry Hills and the son just poking out. The street was lit up underneath the rancid water. It was clear air. The clouds reflected in the water. I played in the smelly water. My parents let me. We pushed people out of the deep water when their cars stalled. It was a neighborhood boys thing.

I have the weather radar in one tab and the updated forecast in another in Firefox. The radar makes the storm look a lot farther away than it is. The forecast just looks drawn, not real.

Channel 11 is simulcasting on a couple of radio stations. I'm glad because we do not have a batteries powered TV. Nor do they make a digital batteries powered TV to my knowledge. I'm not sure what they will say to do next year when there is no analog TV left.  Not long after they throw the switch on TV, they will want to switch to digital radio. I'm not sure they make many batteries powered digital (HD) radio.

It is just now 14:00 and some clouds are passing darkly and frighteningly over head. People are starting to get nerves. The bad stuff comes. It starts quietly. It builds. Then it subsides.

Hurricane Ike

It is of course all that is on any channel. The casters are using every scary word they can think of to get people to get out or hunker down. They have already had stories about people who had a hard time leaving lower areas. East Houston is getting hit pretty hard already. They showed the sea wall. It is under breakers pretty often. The sun is still shining here. I doubt that will last.

People were hoping this hurricane would turn right like several others have done. Ike has made it far enough west that if it turns now, it will just hit Houston. That appears to be turning right ... right in to Houston.

Things to worry about now are water, electricity, city services, food, and stores not being open. I am so glad I left work early yesterday. Nat went out today and said everything is closed. She had to hunt down some last minute essentials and to top off the car. We got gas yesterday but only had enough cash on us to get 3/4 of a tank. I kept the receipt just in case we were being gouged.

The gas station was very interesting. My mother told us she turned off the main road and found a place that had gas and no line pretty easily. She is in Missouri City. We are just off Westheimer and every gas station was out of gas or had lines down the block. Nat nearly jumped from the car when someone tried to jump in front of her at the last second.

The only thing I wish we could have gotten that we ended up unable to get was a box of .45 ammunition. The bullets I have are on the old side. I'll have to remember to get some fresh rounds.

This storm could not have come at a worse time financially. We have a big credit card debt for us anyway. Between dance lessons and school stuff for Elle, paying off the Sam's card, and this storm, we are in the hole by a good amount. I'm telling you, Faire is looking iffy this year. I just ain't got the scratch

This is Kelly, Nat and Elle hunkering down. I'll blog while the power lasts.

Continuing the science theme

It looks like the girl is dumping a bucket of water on to some dry ice maybe. I have no idea. There was no explanation. Cool video.

Lifted videos

Today's theme is cool science.

A real live propane powered flaming graphic equalizer.

Next time I'm trying to disguise my voice my voice on the phone... Never mind. I would like to hear someone like Bury White on this stuff.

Both videos shamelessly lifted from Geekologie. If you are going to lift, lift from the best.

Very Local News

• It is September eleventh.  it has been seven years. It is understandably all that is on the national news. Local news is all about the pending hurricane. Again, understandably.
  
• Office is closed Friday 2008-09-12 for the hurricane. Good idea. I took off today at about 15:00 to make things a bit easier for preparedness.
  
• We have a color coded vacation board. We color in little squares with  pencils to tell what kind of time off we are taking. I think it is great knowing who is gone, but why is between the employee and HR.
• I didn't have any news podcasts to listen to today. When I got home last night, I was completely warn out. I drug myself home from the bus stop. I fixed a sandwich and passed out on the couch waiting for some files to copy. Nat was already asleep. She has been under the weather lately.

Very Local News

• I had to switch keyboards today at work because the one I was using started to squeak. It is like three years old. How much do you have to use a cheap crappy keyboard for it to start squeaking? Apparently, that much.
• Only two percent of medical students intend to be regular GP doctors. The rest are going in to specialties. They say it is because of the money and insurance headaches.
• People are worried about the hurricane. People have really horrible memories about evacuating in the past.  I fear that some folks who should evacuate will not.
  

In the beginning

Example

In the beginning, there was root. Every program was installed thus.

/bin
/lib

This was not good enough. The frigging users and people who didn't know what they were doing needed a sandbox in which to play without destroying their entire machine. This need begot this.

/usr/bin
/usr/lib

Users rejoiced. Every piece of software that does not come with the stock OS started using this area and all was good for about fifteen minutes. Then, someone needed a place to work on new software and this need begot this.

/usr/lib/whatever/bin
/usr/lib/whatever/lib

But this did sucketh because it cluttered the usr folder and we all know how OCD programmers are. So the following was begot.

/usr/local/bin
/usr/local/lib

This place is far enough removed from the sight of every day that the following has happened without a tremendous amount of complaint from the OCD crowd.

/usr/local/whatever/bin
/usr/local/whatever/lib

This was not good enough yet. So, a whole new folder or sandbox was created for custom crap that needs to be done to each server for no good reason.

/opt/whatever/bin
/opt/whatever/lib

This simple example shows how the evolution of a social problem solution works on a very basic scale. Are we any better off with this structure in place? Well, it works.

This is but one more place where knowing the history of events is reacquired in order to get your job done. Never, and I mean under no circumstances, are things under the root folder to be messed with or overwritten unless an upgrade to the OS is being performed. It has gotten to the point that everything will break if things in the /usr folder are played with. Firefox for example installs itself under /usr/lib/Firefox/bin/ for God's sake. All the conventions are both suspect and ignored at one point or another. It is anarchy.

Universe

When someone asks me from now on if I believe in creationism or evolution or the world is riding on the back of an elephant on the back of a turtle floating through space I'm going to answer "yes, thank you."

The more I learn, the more I realize  I do not know. Every thing I learn about quantum and the greater universe, the more I believe in God.  In quantum, things and happenings both exist and do not exist until observed. That is, all possibilities are ready to play out. They just sit there not existing until life comes and trips over them.

In other words, nothing exists in the universe until it absolutely has to exist. If no one is looking, as I drop my foot to the ground, the ground suddenly hops in to existence as I come in to contact with it. This is not true of course.  It sounds good though. It is what would be true if quantum made sense to just any one. Quantum doesn't make sense.

I have a good feeling about the new collider. Not really that it will find anything that science has not already known about, but that it will give people in power the excuse to let some really magical piece of technology that "the world is just not ready for." through the filters and on to the streets. I have some specific hopes.

• New batteries that last millennial without exploding.
• New building materials.
• New means of mobility.
• New means of communication.
• Perfect optics.
  
• Bags of holding, magic carpets, rings of protection, amulets of ESP. I demand magic items!
  
• Death ray.
  
• Cure for all kinds of uncool stuff.
  

To be honest, I had a minor hope that space aliens would go public saying "You guys are about to blow yourselves up. Lets work together to prevent that. Shall we?" No luck. Not even a frigging black hole. What the hell good is that thing anyway? Actually, if there were just enough matter on the earth to have a black hole, the collider might just be the spark to cause the matter to collapse on a grand scale. Earth is far from massive enough to do this. There will be no chain reaction.

Philosophy

Every day, I worry about making the mortgage payment, car payment, insurance, water, Elle's school stuff. It is endless. I do not have time or strength to contemplate the making of the universe. This is sad. I believe that at any given moment in time the majority of people across the world must be worried about something. Idle hands are the devil's workshop. No matter how many conveniences or necessities science brings us, the people who are really in charge will make sure everyone has has something to worry about that does not conflict with satisfying too many people's needs and worries at the same time.

This is why we do not have 500 mpg cars or cures for cancer. There is no money in it.

Give it ten years

Right now is a bad time to loose an arm or leg. You will just miss the boat. I've heard whispers that people will be growing second hearts in place. The old damaged heart will then be removed like an appendix.

I didn't hear anything about growing brain material.

Vision

I've been waring my contacts quite often again. It took a couple weeks to get back in to sync with them. They have astigmatisms correction so they must sit a specific way to work. As a matter of fact, if they are not sitting just right, they make things worse. It is not quite as bad as not warring contacts, but it sucks.

This last time I ordered contacts I got two slightly different brands. There was a warning on the page that this might happen. They are in transition and sending out what is in stock. This is significant because any difference between the contacts evokes a bout of hypochondria. "My left eye is messing up because it is a different brand" or "... different prescription." or "... because I touched it earlier." or "... I slept on that side." or "... I put that one in first." or "... I hadn't watched my hands thoroughly enough before putting them in." or "... I washed my hands too thoroughly before I put them in." or "... I've been blinking too hard." or "... I've been blinking too little." or "... I'm dying of eye cancer and just haven't figured it out yet." It is debilitating.

Last night when I came home I mowed the yard. The light was failing. I could see better in that light than I have in years. This is because I had my contacts in. I had them in all day, yet, they were still usable. Since I had the contacts in, I was able to use the clear safety glasses. The back yard got a good mowing despite the light. It was wonderful.

Several times during the mowing I had to adjust the contacts. This is normal. I have to adjust the spin o the contacts constantly. There is no way I can touch the contacts while mowing the yard. I've been puring gas. I've been messing with filthy things and grass and dirt. If I attempt to touch my eye, it will end in disaster. I've learned to blink in different ways to adjust the contacts.

When one contact goes blurry and I can tell it is because it is not right side up, I look far to the outside and blink to spin the contact that direction. Normally, they spin inward, so I try that direction first. If that makes it worse I look far inward and blink hard. If that does not work, I 'pop' my eye lids. That is, I close my eye, hold the eye lashes with my finger against my cheek and try to open my eye. This causes the eyelid to come off my eye with a little pop sound. This will suck the contact off the cornea. Sometimes this is necessary because I have dry eyes. The contacts cement themselves in place occasionally.

I repeat these actions until I can see. The first thing to try is the hardest. Nothing. The contacts are designed to right themselves during normal calm blinking. I have to stop, relax and look at something far away.  This almost never works, but it keeps me from freaking out and throwing the contacts in the trash.

Something else to try is tilting my head down, looking forward and blinking rapidly. This generally hurts, but does work occasionally. This might lead to me pulling down on the skin under my lower eyelid to make my top eyelid even tighter.  The next thing to try is closing my eye, putting some pressure on the front of my eye with my finger and looking back and forth a couple of times. I think these actions just cause my eyes to water.

If I hold my eyes open wide most of the time, the contacts do not rotate. When I squint or let my eyes half close for a while is when the contacts get off kilter. Sometimes just opening my eyes up wide and trying to blink as normally as possible will straighten them out. It feels creepy when they move around on my eye. That will never go away.

I want clear vision. I would like 20/20 vision. I can't drive because of my vision. I have three pare of glasses and contacts and a little pare of binoculars and magnifying glass in my pocket all just to get the most out of the vision I have. It is still not enough. It will do.

Contacts are a pain. Think about it. You have something in your eye all the time. Hard contacts were torture. The Geneva Convention should have something about them. I see just that little bit better with contacts so I endure. Glasses are annoying and don't do as good a job. I would like something like Lasix, but I cannot stand the thought of having a flap on my eye for the rest of my life. The no flap Lasix is dangerous and painful. I keep hearing about alternatives, but there just is nothing right now.

Sushi

The term Sushi has come up more recently than in my memory. People have mentioned sushi off and on over the years, but it has been in the background noise. Now, I hear an NPR story about blue fin tuna vs Japan. Then I hear a story from someone at work about a buddy of his getting stuck in a Korean Tuna net and having to use a crane to lift them out. Then a guy has sushi for lunch. Nat calls me asking where to get some cheap sushi for the afternoon.

I don't mind fake American sushi. I'm not much on eating anything that is not cooked. Some fish is healthier than others. Maybe there is a vast sushi conspiracy to get Americans to eat more fish. I thought the oceans were over fished as it is.

I did not know until that NPR story that sushi was not popular in Japan until refrigeration became popular in the 1950s. Before that only fisherman ate raw fish. The rest might be salted or smoked right on the boat to store it until they made port. I never put two and two together until that story. Fish have to be put straight on ice to be used for sushi.

Some people view sushi as some kind of special thing. It is still regarded as a delicacy. I hate to say it, but it has gone beyond main stream. I'm surprised you can't get it in a drive through if I'm honest. I've heard of people spending a couple hundred bucks on for or so people at a sushi place. I hope that is the real thing.

... I want sushi.

Poor Amy

So, I'm rummaging though the free video bin on one of my favorite video web sites, and come across something about Amy Winehouse something cocaine in a UK club. That is bad enough. The related videos are as follows.

Cops Seize Amy Crack video

I was the fan hit by Amy Windhouse

Police Arrest Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse Racist Video

Any Windhouse Showed Face at Hubby's Cort Date ... Bad Idea

Amy Windhouse doing coke on stage

Singer Amy Windhouse has damaged lungs

Winehouse arrested after drugs found in hotel

Winehouse faces arrest for multiple assaults

Forget something?

Rolling down the hill. It looks like this train has no tracks. Details ... details.

... Tumblin' Tumbleweeds.

Somewhere in Queensland Australia. Pretty cool.

Very Local News

• Liz Lockhart, the traffic person on NPR in Houston, sounded like the operator character that comedian had all those years ago.
• The bus driver this morning tried to take a left down Westheimer Parkway. The other guy and I jumped out of our seats. He was new to the rout. I thought for sure they changed the rout on me again. I wonder if the Brier Forest branch got closed down.
  
• Countrywide is still making home loans. Only, now, you have to document that you have a job and your credit. In other words, you have to prove to the bank that you can pay the mortgage back. I would not be able to get the loan I have now if I tried to get it today.
• Washington Post Associate Editor ... = bullshit.
• A 200 kg (450 lb) tuna might go for $8500 in the Japanese market. Tuna can swim at 112 kph (55 mph). Half a million tons of tuna make it to Japan a year.
  
• Garry Colman hit some guy's foot with his truck at a bolling ally. I forgot that Colman ran for governor of California at some point. Can you believe this crap makes the news. It did make me giggle a bit.
  
• Google is worth as much as Bowing, McDonald's and FedEx combined. Not bad for a ten year old.
  
• Gustav hit New Orleans a week ago. The power is still out in some places. Will it survive the next round? Will people still want to leave? Will the next one hit us here in Houston?
• I work with a bunch of working rich people. They have mostly all bought houses in the last year or so.  Some are looking for houses. I am both not rich and broke. They stack in my case.
  
• I want the election to be over. If only, because I want something else to dominate he news. That could be bad. I'm caring less and less every story.
• Discussions during the work day
• Houses
• Beer and wine and vodka and where to put the keg.
• Hurricanes. One week since the last one and we are looking at another headed right for us.
• Pringles are expensive, but squish resistant.
  
• Nat was under the weather so I walked home from the bus stop. I then mowed the back yard in the dusk light. I didn't even pass out. I'm almost proud of myself. I need to get used to this sort of thing for Faire season.
  

Soothing Agony

Stombled across a strange and wonderful story including the above song.

Just a slip of the tongue

I really do believe this is just a slip of the tongue.

One man ... One blog

Reminds me of that Sinfeld where the chick refused to break up with George. "No, we are not broken up."

Gumball Post

This event is old news. I want something cool. It was interesting to watch a guy in a Chevy truck beat Ferraris and such. Now it is all international and $150,000 to entry. It has become a whole 'thing'.

Ken Park

I need someone else to watch Ken Park and tell me if it is a good movie. I like the movie. It is the only movie that consistently makes me uncomfortable that I like probably because of it.

In the first of many disturbing scenes, a man makes his daughter reenact a wedding scene.

Another scene has a father pee, the camera pans down just in case you didn't get what was going on, after driving home drunk. Then molest his son.

A grandson murders his grandparents while naked and aroused.

A young man masturbates with asphyxia while watching a video of women playing tennis.

One of the lesser disturbing plot points is that one young man is having sex with his girlfriend's mother. They have the most normal scene where they are all at the dinner table shooting the breeze. The unwitting father just wants to make the young man part of the family. The girlfriend seems pleased. The young man and mother have a secret. The little girl, the second daughter of the mother, has her own issues that the movie only hints about.

Then, there is the orgy-esk scenes towards the end. They are two guys and one girl, but they have a kind of party feeling. Not sure how to describe it. By the time you get here, you want the release of just having some kind of normal sex. You are glad this is going on because it is not disturbing really. There is pillow talk about dreams of escaping their small town hell mixed with sex.

I need to know if this is a good movie. I like it and I do not know why. I particularly like the last trivia bullet in the above IMDB link.

"UK distributor Hamish McAlpine dropped the film after Larry Clark punched him in the face at a celebratory dinner."

Normally I hate movies that make me feel uncomfortable just for the sake of making me giggle or shocked or squirm. This movie doesn't seem to be out to get me with the uncomfortableness. It just reports the happenings and lets me feel and think as I will.

I just might vote for McCain/Patin

I gave the example of Richard Nixon.  He did virtually everything Democrats wanted.  He got us out of Vietnam -- by withdrawing in defeat.  He hugged Mao Zedong, the greatest mass murderer in history, in public.  He imposed wage and price controls.  He gave us OSHA and the EPA.  His EPA chief then outlawed DDT, letting millions around the world die defenseless against malaria.  He appointed Justice Blackmun to the Supreme Court, who went on to author Roe v Wade.  He increased government spending to support a growing welfare state. And what did conservatives get for all that?  A Republican President resigning in disgrace, a sweep of Democrats in Congress, oil price shocks, a recession, President Jimmy Carter, our enemies emboldened abroad and a political albatross that hangs around the necks of Republicans to this day. ... If McCain were trying to morph the Republican Party into Democrat-Lite, I would not vote for him.  He could have demonstrated that by picking a Vice President like Joe Lieberman.  Nothing wrong with Joe, but he's not a Republican.  He thinks life is improved through government programs.  Republicans think government usually is the problem, not the solution. But McCain did not pick Joe Lieberman or anyone like that.  He picked Sarah Patin. And that changed everything. American Thinker

Between things like the above post and my current candidate pissing me off lately. I just might bring my stubby little pencil around and bubble in the Republican ticket. It would save me the trouble of figuring out how to write someone's name in or vote for Bullwinkle or something along those lines. I'm sick of the election. I'm looking for an excuse to make it easier on myself to decide one way or the other. Once one makes a decision, the lack of wanting to change may be as much do to 

Very Local News

• You know, it kind of pisses me off that Google has no Chrome browser for Linux yet. "Oh, we promise to come out with a browser for Mac and Linux someday. Really. Right now we want to latch on to the low fruit. "
• I heard a country and western song this morning about a woman who was planning on pulling a shot gun on her boyfriend because he smacked her around. It reminded me a bit of gangster rap.
  
• One of the guys at work is getting rid of a foosball table. He sent some pictures along. The table looks brand new. One of his children was in one of the pictures. I'm thinking how sad it is that he is giving up something that he obviously enjoyed at some point. Such is life.
• I still hate "Red Red Wine". I had a girlfriend who loved that song. I just can't stand it and I don't even know why. It just makes me ill every time I hear it. I like red wine. This song inspired me to write a script to filter songs I do not like.
• Nat and my anniversary is coming up. November 6. I wonder what Nat would like to do to calibrate.
• One of the songs I listen to at work occasionally was done by Stevy Ray Vaughn and B. B. King. They were a hell of a pare.
• NPR interviewed a guy who wrote a book about manic depression. This guy had the disease. His mother had problems with anxiety and his father took several tries to get him committed because he could hold it together for an hour at a time in front of the authorities. The show was depressing <straight faced>
  
• The podcast after that was about a guy helping disabled kids in Hatti. That's great, but Jesus it was hard to listen to.
• You are looking through 40 times as much air at the horizon as you are looking straight up.

Documentation Hell

Have a need to fix someone's problem.
Want to see it through feel the call.
A programmer/engineer cannot let it go.
What is broken must be fixed.
What is undone must be done, to death.

Working hard to put it down in lines and loops.
Make it build and watch it run.
Tweak, twiddle, paint and polish.
Test and test and test again.
Someone admits the damn thing is done.

Programing is an art and a science.
No code is ever done.
Something needs fixing, always, forever.
Only when the need is gone is it done.
But code jockeys must move on.

When coders can code no more.
When the binaries do what they are supposed to do.
When there is no excuse left to fiddle.
When all else has failed to fail.
It is time for to turn to the Doc Side.

Asking a code monkey to write docs.
Is a bit like asking a dog to climb a rope.
When it is done, you end up with a dog up a rope.
The next time you look at docs for software.
Remember just how useful that dog is up there.

Another Asshole

Remember the Vette from a couple days ago? This is the same on-ramp, different car. This guy plows in to someone and takes off. If you recognize this jerk, please turn them in.

Slow motion cycling firearms

I could watch this sort of thing for a while. It is very interesting to me to watch the automatics eject the spent round and load the next. The AR-15 looking rifle surprised me with how hard the shell slammed against the guard before heading off forward.

The Sun

It is early September. I've noticed the shadows getting longer at mid day when I take my walks at lunch time. The sun rise and sun set have not appeared to move that much. The sun hits me straight in the eye on the bus as we head East down Westheimer in the morning. It does pretty much the same on the ride home in the evening.

A friend told me a story years ago about driving home down the Katy freeway. It was early evening and the sun was straight down the road. That is bad enough, but the road was covered in water from a shower so all the cars were throwing up mist. On top of that, the sun was shining straight in his eye and bouncing off the shiny slick road. The bumper to bumper traffic was flowing rather briskly at about seventy to eighty miles per hour. No one could see anything and every one had a headache from trying to see something.