Yesterday I am on the driveway deciding what goes back in the garage and what goes in the garbage.
Sarah, steps into the garage and shouts out to me: "Mom said to tell you its thundering!"
Dad: *blink* *blink*
Category: Daily Life
Ramblings, often stream of conscious, journaling the events of my life.
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From the mouths of babes
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Two steps forward; one step back
With the beautiful weather and frustration at not being able to locate my tools, I took some time this weekend to clean out the garage. Much rejoicing was had as I found goodies to pass along to the children who hazarded closely enough to investigate the mysterious cave of a garage, some braving to linger long enough to be enlisted into cleaning while others took a quick look and ran. I can walk in my garage again much to the chagrin of the hundreds of camel crickets who thought this a nice residence.
You know that scene in Twister with the barn full of scythes and sharp farm tools. I reproduced it on a smaller scale when my free standing peg board holding chisels, screw drivers, saws (including one of those handy "I cut through anything" drywall demolition saws), and whatnot fell on me. I took that Indiana Jone "the ceiling with sharp spears is coming down on me and there is nothing I can do poses" and hoped for the best. I got the best.
Steps back? Time in the garage took away from time on the computer but in the long run the organization will save time and off loading the trash makes for a happier home.
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Building collapses in NY
Swap blog reports "A three story building just blew up in New York." Any confirmation on this?
Update: MSNBC reports "A three-story building collapsed Monday in midtown Manhattan after an explosion and fire at the site, fire officials said. Smoke rose high above the building, located on 62nd Street between Park and Madison avenues. "
Other information I’m hearing
- is that it was a doctor’s office.
- Possible gas leak
- NOT terrorism
- Power surge
- building 70 feet wide
- witnesses say didn’t sound like an explosion but like something fell
- 4 injuries, no deaths yet
So, what’s going on in Congress that needed a swing vote based on public sentiment?
Update: One person trapped alive in the rubble.
Not to make light of a horrible situation but does anyone get the feeling this will end with a fat man with bad flatuance ala Confederacy of Dunces?
UPDATE: I was just told that in an interview on MSNBC that the NYC fire chief confirmed the building collapse as a gas leak. CNN has the scoop and of course it is credible because, well, they quote Larry King who was in a hotel somewhere in the city when it happened.
Update: Word on the street is that suicide is being investigated as the leading cause of the building collapse…I guess even buildings gets depressed.
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Do you have sound studio access out west?
Do you have access to a sound studio in West Knoxville? Thought I’d ask before dragging the family to East Knoxville. I have a project to record a 15 second sound bite. I figure I need 5 to 30 minutes of studio time but this isn’t worth studio time so I need to do it on a favor or trade in service. I’d much prefer to do it somewhere near home than across town.
Doing it at Roland, Scripps, HGTV, or Jewelry TV would be cool!
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My citizenship has been revoked – 65%
I scored 13 out of 20 on the immigration test. There were 4 that I changed my answer on. Had I followed ye ol’ high school standardized testing rules that would have put me at 17 out of 20. Some of my mistakes are embarassing!
Why would I know this?
19. What INS form is used to apply to become a naturalized citizen?
a) Form N-200 “Petition for Naturalization”
b) N-400 “Application for Naturalization”
c) Social Security card
d) FD-258Thanks to Deliverance for the the link.
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Clean that machine!
One of the things I can do well is bring a PC back to life that has been so heavily attacked with viruses, malware, spyware, and adware that it can’t even boot. I charge $95 to clean the machine and ask that you let me bring it to my house since it usually takes 5 or more hours.
Right now I have one that is giving me a hard way to go because of something called Surf SideKick. Here’s a list of the baddies:
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Callings to a sweat lodge
I have had the honor of an invitation to a sweat lodge. They will be constructing it today and participating tonight. I want to help build it. The timing on the invitation is quite synchronistic. I feel I have made some rather positive changes in my recent life and a sweat would be a wonderful opportunity for reflection. Unfortunately, I must turn down the invitation. My project is consuming me and must, without fail, be completed in whole today! I have never done a sweat lodge and hope that such an opportunity will present itself again one day.
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Yesterday’s poster updated
So rather than report on North Korea’s fireworks show, I thought I’d have fun with some allusion to where these actions could lead. How about great tv! So I remade a movie poster.
I started with the original movie poster and rushed through the title trying to pull as many words from the original as possible.
“‘M*A*S*H’ is what the new freedom of the screen is all about!” -Richard Schickel, Life
became
“‘M*A*S*H:THE SEQUEL’ is what losing freedom in America is all about!” -http://blog.siliconholler.com/
But I was really stretching. Now it reads:
“‘M*A*S*H:THE SEQUEL’ Bush’s next repeat operation!” -http://blog.siliconholler.com/
Incase a little explanation is in order, operation both refers to MASH being a medical offit with surgeons and that we call our wars "operations" now. The 1991 Persian Gulf War was Operation Desert Storm. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was called Operation Iraqi Freedom. Next of course refers to the fact that GW enjoys the power of the oval office too much not to leave office without doing something in addition to Iraq. Repeat refers to Bush’s inclination to not doing anything original. Iraq, did it in 91 but he did it again in 03. Ok, N Korea? Did it in 50 but Bush is going to do it again! Come on. Let’s do something original with this administration. Let’s invade Canada! Oops. Apparently we did that in 1775 and 1812. Steve Burgess at Salon says we should do it again and right now!
It didn’t support the war, it’s soft on pot and gays, its economy is rolling and U.S. troops are bored. Anyway, reasons to invade countries are no longer needed!
Someone has asked me to explain the first quote on the poster.
"Because you were too young for Nam and too old for the Gulf but thanks to new legislation this is the perfect war for your midlife crisis!"
This quote is totally about the legislation to allow new recruits as old as 42 into the Army. See where the numbers fall. Of course this raises concerns about the draft but so did Operation Desert Storm. Here are the typical accepted recruitment ages. As for the quote, if you are 42 you should be deeply entrenched in a midlife crisis. Plus you were definitely too young for Vietnam and, although technically eligible, you were probably older than the demographic fighting in either of the Gulf Wars.
The "Coming to a country soon" reference should be self-evident. I will go ahead and mark the date. January 13, 2007 the United States begins strategic bombing raids on North Korea.
Why associate a comedy with something as dark as North Korea? Understand that North Korea is crazy.
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Another win!
Woohoo! One of my referrals won a movie ticket on Blingo so I win too! I received the choice of a movie ticket or a $10 iTunes gift certificate. This time I chose the movie ticket. Cathy has won 4 times and I’ve won 3 times. We use the iTunes certificate or movie ticket as a bribe for Sarah.
Today’s Blingo Blog notes that Blingo is becoming PCHBlingo. Yes, you read that correctly. Publisher’s Clearing House (promise to give away $10million while secretly stealing old people’s retirement under the guise of selling magazines) has purchased Blingo!
Over the last two years you’ve come to enjoy great search results and fun prizes at Blingo. We’ve given away over 22,000 gifts since we started, but in an effort to give away more, even bigger prizes, Blingo has partnered with the king of sweepstakes. Yes, you guessed it: Publishers Clearing House, the folks who give away things like $10 million at a time. The new PCHBlingo will be the same great site but with a bit more punch.
Watch the site for new features and exciting prizes, and thanks for searching and winning on Blingo!
I’ll hold my judgment. Maybe I’ll need to switch to Ask’s Searchchips.com. Ask has produced some better search engine results than Google here lately anyhow.
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From the mouths of babes
Sarah, who has lost her cellphone somewhere in the house: "Well, I don’t know what to do!"
Dad, blink blink: "Find it?" -
Do you still have a land line?
Have you done away with your land line yet? We have a land line that is mostly for the kids. I use it because it is more clear than my cell at times and conveniently located beside my workstation with a nice headset. We are horrible about checking it for voicemail. There are actually two lines. One is the primarily line and the other is a line dedicated to the children and a fax machine. We mostly use the fax machine for making copies. This setup runs me roughly $80 per month (which is nearly $1000 per year!). The primary reason for keeping it is that I’ve had the main number for over a decade. Even people that haven’t been in touch with me in years can call me. By the same rationale I used to hang onto a post office box that took me nearly a half an hour drive in one direction to get the junk mail out of it. In the same vein, the primary caller to the land line is the ever present bill collector.
Yes, sometimes I have a hard time letting go. Today unless I miraculously pull $200 out of my hind quarters, that piece of nostalgia goes away forever. At least I have the convenient excuse of telling people "we only use our cell phones" instead of "my cash flow is so screwed up that I can’t hang onto basic utilities."
As I write this, I become increasingly comfortable with the idea of simply arming each family member with their own cell phone (3/7s the way there already) and never again using Hellsouth (aside from their relationship to Cingular).
Watch for this weekend’s followup installment: Learning how to live without electricity!
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I rode The Dragon
Julie posted a reference to The Dragon. Years ago I rode The Dragon on a 1981 Honda CM400C (the C apparently means "custom" and is bored out to have the displacements of a 600…basically means a 600 will take me from the line but at cruisiing speed we pull the same RPMs). Sometimes a comment deserves to be a post so I repost here:
I rode the Dragon once. It tightens your butt cheeks quite well.
Motorcyclists have a rating system called “pucker factor” which is the degree to which your gluteus clings to your seat. The Dragon has a high pucker factor.
Once thing about the Dragon is you come out of it knowing how to take a turn. I was loaded down on an underpowered bike really designed to stay in the city and heading to Atlanta and I recall this one turn that I went into with a lot of lean. It was graffitti defying antics nearly dragging peg (that means the piece of metal your foot rests on drags the ground). That turn kept on going and going and going. It felt like I made a full circle three times! I certainly surpassed my comfort zone on that one but really learned the capabilities of my bike.
I hope to high heaven that I-3 gets shot down and does not destroy the Dragon.
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Wear my shoes!
“Where we stand depends on where we sit.” -Stephen R Covey
“For every thousand hacking at the leaves of evil, there is one striking at the root.” -Thoreau
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Lame Technology
Why can’t I reach through the phone and strangle the idiot on the other end? I should be able to do that!