I'm getting old

My oldest turned 15 today.  This coming summer will filled with driving lessons.  Time to start saving for a new clutch.

Sent from my G1...

Why was this stopped?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7798270.stm

Unless the receiving couple can be shown to have a history of abuse/neglect/imcompetence when it comes to child care, why shouldn't they be allowed to keep the child?  They clearly want the child, and the biological parents clearly don't want the child.  Let the child go to where it is wanted.

Lyme disease sucks

It really does.

Sent from my G1...

The Ice Storm of 2008 IV

My wife's job requires Internet access, so sometime on Saturday or Sunday I called Charter to report an outage.  Today I received an automated phone call from Charter:

This is Charter Communications calling in reference to the outage that you reported to let you know that service has been restored. Thank you. Good-bye.

How can they report to me that my service has been restored when I don't even have power back on yet?

Sent from my G1...

I'm waiting for my visit from the non-union fairy godmother...

I tuned into WTKK 96.9 briefly over the weekend to hear this come from one of the two mouth-breathers known as the hosts of the "Joe and Huggy Show": 

Now, I'm a member of a union, and while on paper it looks like we make 60 to 70 dollars per hour, after you figure in retirement, medical, dental, life insurance, car insurance and all that other stuff, we really only make 20 to 30 dollars per hour.

I cannot comprehend the mindset that would think this way.

The Ice Storm of 2008 III

Today was spent locating, buying, transporting and installing a 5700 watt gas-powered generator.  We now have heat, water and refrigerator.  The sound of a flushing toilet has never sounded so good.

Sent from my G1...

The Ice Storm of 2008 II

It's 12:49 AM and I'm wide awake after draining the pipes.  I had gone outside for more wood for the woodstove and checked the thermometer.  20F.  The hallway from the kitchen to Fee's office had been quite cold and I couldn't stop worrying over the pipes.  So I opened the faucet in the basement sink and went around and opened all the other faucets all over the house.  No ice chunks came out, so I guess I did it in time.

My neighbor lost a huge double tree in the storm (two trees that had grown right next to each other and shared a root ball).  One side went down and absolutely smashed a shed of his.  The other side went down on all the utility lines for his house and mine.  At the base of the trunk, both trees are easily 24" in diameter.  National Grid has no idea how bad it is up here.  I doubt we'll have power again any time soon.

Sent from my G1...

The Ice Storm of '08

A very terrible kind of beauty around here.  We're likely to be without power for two more days.

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Who is the genius who came up with this one?

I woke up about an hour ago to the sound of an ice-encrusted tree branch crashing down onto my truck. After the requisite tour of the house and barn to make sure there wasn't any other damage that required immediate attention, stoking the wood stoves, and generally calming down the wife, I got around to calling in the power outage clearly caused by the ice storm.

"Welcome to our automated outage reporting service.  Please enter your 10 digit phone number."

Okay.

"We're sorry, but our records show two accounts that have that number listed as the phone number for that account. Please enter your account number found at the top of your latest bill."

My power is out, there are trees crashing down around the house every minute or so, and you want me to go thrashing around in the dark and find my latest bill?!?

They repeated this request twice before telling me I could say that I didn't have it.

What moron came up with this?

Sent from my G1...

Work of Art

Every year, our church has a small fund-raiser of people building gingerbread houses and selling them to other members of the parish.  Each year, this one family makes a virtual work of art.  All the furniture and wall decorations and pictures and everything is meticulously made out of gingerbread.  And as you can see from the picture, the tree has working lights.

Masterful!

Sent from my G1...

Scrabble

Heh.

Sent from my G1...

Medieval Halloween

The haunted barn is shaping up, but the forecast for Saturday is rain. Happens every year.

Jumping on the bandwagon

Just got this one in an email and a Google search shows 994 hits on the first sentence:

Today on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a sign that read "Vote Obama, I need the money." I laughed. 

Once in the restaurant my server had on a "Obama 08" tie, again I laughed as he had given away his political preference--just imagine the coincidence. 

When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need--the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight. 

I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I've decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful. 

At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient needed money more. 

I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.

Nice analogy.

I fear for my children's future...

Paraphrased from an IM conversation with a good friend:

I fear for the future of our country. We are "welfaring" ourselves out of existence. Once a person realizes that the fruits of one's labors will largely go to others who aren't laboring, there remains only two choices. Join the non-laborers, or leave the country.

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship." - Unknown

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," - George Santayana

The crowds are large and they aren't reading.

I just noticed something...

I'm walking through the Boston Public Garden and maybe 5% of the trees
are showing any signs of starting to change color. Yet at home
yesterday, I had just noticed that practically all of the trees have
changed color. Yet the two locations are only 40 miles apart.

Funny that.

Sent from my iPod touch...

???

Bosniaks?

Sent from my iPod touch...

BWAH HA HA HA

Senator O'biden!

Sent from my iPod touch...

A little experiment: The results

Well, both posts had hard returns. Time to look into blogging apps for iPhone.

Time to watch the VP debate.

A little experiment: Part II

While this is just a follow-up post, I do have to come up with
sufficient text to fill up several lines. I'm currently sitting in my
usual spot on the train, exchanging bon-mots with all the regulars.

I put in for two weeks of vacation for either the last two weeks of
October or the last week of October and the first week of November
depending on whether I can get everything running on autopilot at work
in the next two weeks.

Okay, that's enough; back to Solebon.

Sent from my iPod touch...

A little experiment: Part I

Yesterday I made the sunset post using the "Send Photo" feature in the
iPhone Photo Gallery. That post showed up with no hard returns in it
that match up with the screen width of the mail client of the iPod
touch. So I'm sending this from the gallery but am deleting the pic.
Next I'll post Part II from the mail client.

Sent from my iPod touch...

On the way home...

...there was a gorgeous sunset tonight. I didn't have my camera with
me but it reminded me of this shot I took about a year ago. Sunsets
rock!

Sent from my iPod touch...

Killing time...

Smallware's Solitaire app for the iPhone/iPod touch is a slick little app for passing the time on the commute. Yesterday I beat my previous record time of 2:11 with 1:54 as shown in the screenshot. Also shown in the screenshot is what I consider to be a bug. If you put your iPhone/touch to sleep with the game as the active app, the timer doesn't stop, which is how I ended up with a longest winning time of 6:30:01.

But other than that, it's a fine way to kill time on the train.

Re-emerging from another world...

World of Warcraft is as bad as Evercrack.

On Anvilmar, I have a level 70 Dwarf Hunter main and a level 43 Gnome Mage alt. The dwarf has the epic flying mount and tons of great armour and the gnome has the robot chicken that I knew I had to have the moment I saw one in game.

WoW is one reason why this blog has been neglected for over two years. While it was fun while it lasted, I think I've gotten it out of my system.

Plus, I am now the proud owner of an iPod Touch. Now I can easily compose posts during idle moments when I find myself having a thought I want to record, which, of course, usually happens away from the computer.