Lately Sandy has been asking me if I hear squirrels in the roof. I always say no because I thought they were just in the gutters. Turns out, I was wrong. And I spent 2 hours last night in my attic and on the roof installing new mesh screens on the roof vents. If we hear noises again, that means they are trapped up there and I will have to put out live traps to catch them. I like squirrels. . .outside.
So the last time I rode my bike to work was this spring. Jumping over a pot hole, I broke a spoke. I gave it up after finding out how much it would be to replace. ~ $75. Three weeks ago, however, I ordered a FiberFix kevlar replacement spoke. It came in and I picked it up Saturday. I installed it Sunday and rode the bike intodayl Thespoke performed flawlessly. However, I blew a backtire. Again, about $75 to replace.
SO...
I will be riding in Sandy's bike from now on and I am making plans to have my wheels rebuilt from sew-ups to clinchers. I want to keep my Campagnolo hubs, which are beautiful.
(Not my actual hub but a picture of one just like it.)
I will probably go with a pair of Mavic Open Pro rims, whioch are about 70 bucks each. I don't know what the wheel building will set me back, but it's worth it to have a good bike in good shape. I can't afford to buy a new bike, but I'd like to have a bike that I can afford to ride.
An interesting story on El Al flight screening. I agree that security should be this good so people don't have to worry. Even though statistically, there is very little to worry about.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2001/10/01/elal-usat.htm
Most people who saw Sandy's blog post about Owen's bike riding prowess probably didn't slow it down enough. . .
I have been practicing popping wheelies on the bike Annika won at the circus a couple years ago. My goal is to be able to ride a wheelie as far as I want to. Like, hundreds of feet. Short term goal is the length of my driveway. So far I'm half way there.
I created a system whereby people in my group at IBM can modify their schedules to leave early. It's called the Buddy Board. I am forever having to ask people if they are planning on staying til 5 so that I can "buddy out" and leave at 4. Today I asked my co-worker Jim if he was planning to "buddy in" today and he responded:
I'll be here till 5:00, but not the whole time. I will be taking a lunch for about 50 minutes or so. I am contemplating leaving in a couple of minutes for lunch, but on the other hand, if I take a later lunch, it will make the afternoon go faster. I often times intend to take a later lunch, but my hunger gets too overwhelming. At those times I take an earlier lunch. It's funny though. Sometimes I believe I will be taking an earlier lunch, but end up leaving at 12:00, or maybe even as late as 1:00. I remember one time, I didn't leave until about 2:00. Wow, that made the afternoon go really quick. That would be excellent for the days that I work until 6:00. But even then, I want to take a early lunch. However, when 5:00 or so rolls around, I need to eat something. That's why I brought in some snacks. The occasions that I need just a bit to tide me over, that does the trick. I often wonder how much snack food is sold at stores like Kwik Trip, Walmart, Target, Shopko, The Dollar Store, Sam's Club, Hyvee, Wonder bread store, mom and pop stores, and other convienience stores, in order to accomodate people like me that need to just 'take the edge off'. If it were a simple matter of just 'willing' the hunger to go away, that would be nice. But the hunger 'pains' are just to overwhelming. Oh yeah, I'll buddy in.Jim is just one reason why I come to work.
It is a derogatory term used to label someone who holds extreme Rebublican (right wing) or Democratic (left wing) views. That's where the "nut" part comes in. Sometimes it is shortened to "winger." So right winger means right wingnut.
I hadn't realized this before and I think it's fascinating.
More political eipthets and theirt meanings available at Wikipedia.
I have never looked into what happened on Flight 93 on 9/11. However, today I heard someone say "Let's Roll " so I decided to look it up.
Oh dear.
The impact hole. This actually looks like what a kid would draw if asked to draw a picture of a plane crash. Also, one would think that airplanes would be equipped with flight software that would try to recover from a vertical crash.
The explosion? That looks like a bomb.
This doesn't look believeable to me. And if one thing is not believeable, the rest of something is usually not believeable, either.
Now here is a debris field I can believe:
Here's an idea. There must be a plane this size that will be retired soon. Let's load it with fuel and use a remote control to smash it into the ground nose first. We can set up cameras and everything. If the impact looks anything similiar to Flight 93's, and there is very little debris, I'd say that people who doubt that it happened should worry about something else. If it doesn't look like this, then I'd say that we need more evidence of what really happened.
Comments?
I got beat by a few, but at least I didn't come in last. Now that would be embarrasing.
http://nflpool.talient.com/2006/results0602.txt
Find out.
This is a facinating look at federal spending. Nuff said.
This will be slow for dial-up users, as it is a huge image.
Recently attended a Wiggles concert and saw Murray admonishing a small child to sit down. Come on Murray, lighten up!
Soon all passpost issuing offices will be putting the RFID tags into passports. These tags have your personal information stored on an RFID chip, and can be easily copied. Bruce Schneier notes that the chips can be disabled by zapping in a microwave, but that may damage the passport and doing that might pose problems. If you can get a new passport now, you avoid the chip.
Read more at Schneier's blog.
Lately our cable modem Internet service died.
Last night lightning killed our modem, whcih I didn't have connected to a power strip.
I removed the modem and hooked up the computer again.
The cable modem lights were all on, but I couldn't access the Internet.
After about 5 minutes I realized that the cable modem was not plugged into the computer.
Just an admission.
Please take a minute out of your day and read security expert Bruce Schneier's latest newsletter.
The point of terrorism is to cause terror, sometimes to further a political goal and sometimes out of sheer hatred. The people terrorists kill are not the targets; they are collateral damage. And blowing up planes, trains, markets, or buses is not the goal; those are just tactics. The real targets of terrorism are the rest of us: the billions of us who are not killed but are terrorized because of the killing. The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but our reaction to the act.
And we're doing exactly what the terrorists want.
Tis true.
Often I will make recommendations to kids starting college that if they have to take economics, there is but one book they need to read, Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt. I found my copy for 50 cents at the RO Carlson Book and Record shop in Duluth.
The "One Lesson" is this:
The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.
Today I found it online for free.
There was an article on Classic Wisconsin about Packer Coach Dan Devine and his dog that I felt the need to comment on. My e-mail to him:
Dan Devine was our neighbor when I was a kid. We lived a few miles out of town near Trout Creek. The only farmer around there would have been "Farmer Hanson" who lived on the corner of Pine Tree Road and Trout Creek Road. That would have been a little short of a half mile away. He was the only farmer around there. I believe he had at least 13 or 14 children. There was another guy who owned a horse barn named Jerabek. We believe that he shot our German Shepherd/Black Lab mix because it used to chase his horses. But I don't remember that he had a basketball hoop. The other notable resident of the neighborhood was William Evers, noted for having the most expensive court trial in Wisconsin State History. He was a known racketeer and was into prostitution as well. The map below details where people lived and where there were woods. It was very wooded! Still is, only now the area of Farmer Hanson is being made into a housing community and there is a golf course and a housing development named ThornBerry Creek.Maybe some of this info can make it into your story.
in Florida!
Dr. Bob Bowman is the Democratic Candidate rubbing for office in FLodida's district 15. Here's what he has to say about 9/11.
9/11: The truth about 9/11 is that we don’t KNOW the truth about 9/11, and we should. I will sponsor (and have already lined up co-sponsors for) legislation initiating a truly independent investigation of 9/11. There is mounting evidence of complicity by elements of our own government.
If they have nothing to hide, why are they hiding everything? Why are they hiding audiotapes of FAA and NORAD controllers? Why are they hiding videotapes of whatever hit the Pentagon? Why are they hiding the black boxes? Why did they destroy most of the forensic evidence showing that three buildings at the World Trade Center were brought down by thermite demolition charges? If the thermite residue found on severed steel beams didn’t bring down the towers, what did? (Never before in history did steel skyscrapers fall because of fire, and THREE of them did on the same day … one of which wasn’t even hit by an airplane!) Why did four hijacked airliners fly around for up to an hour and 45 minutes without being intercepted? Why were normal procedures not followed? (If normal procedures HAD been followed, the aircraft would have been intercepted with 20 minutes to spare, the twin towers would still be standing, and thousands of dead Americans would still be alive.) If it was massive incompetence, why has no one been fired? … or demoted? … or court martialed? (Instead they were promoted or given the medal of freedom!) If Osama bin Laden was really suspected, why did our government violate its own “no-fly” order to hurriedly fly the bin Laden family out of the United States before they could be questioned? Why does the “Osama bin Laden” in the “confession” videotape have a nose about an inch shorter than the real Osama bin Laden? Why have half a dozen of the 19 “hijackers” turned up in other countries … alive and well? Were there really any hijackers at all, and if there were, were they patsies? Who made millions on short sales of United and American Airlines? Where is the tens of billions of dollars worth of missing gold that was stored in the World Trade Center?
The American people and the families of those who died on 9/11 deserve the truth, and we do not yet have it. The above are but a tiny fraction of the unanswered questions not even raised by those who “investigated” the 9/11 tragedy. The most unbelievable of all the conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11 is the OFFICIAL conspiracy theory told us by our government. The Kean-Hamilton commission report was a whitewash, a cover-up, and a bundle of deception. If a new investigation identifies those responsible, they should be indicted for treason. And those who covered up the treason should themselves be indicted as accessories after the fact.
IBM has started shipping the chips for Nintendo's next generation gaming console, the WII.
I want this machine. And I want it bad. Yeah the PS3 could run Linux, and it's a faster console, but I want the WII. Here's why:
http://chris.quietlife.net/2004/04/28/the-wireless-racket/
I found this while I was typing in a different URL and mistyped it and hit enter too soon. No idea why this happened.
I remember 9/11 because it was the only time I was ever scared/excited driving to work. Sandy had called me at home to tell me about it. I had been playing Half Life on the computer when she called. I switched on the tube and watched and then drove in to IBM for my late 9-6 shift. We all watched the websites all day and worked a lot with customers from New York and New Jersey. Some of our customers were in the WTC and they lost all their employees.
$600,000 was spent on investigating the collapse of the twin towers.
Over $40 million was spent to investigate President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinski.
http://www.firehouse.com/news/2002/1/14_APwtcstudy.html
Also, in a recent Zogby Poll: 66% of New Yorkers want 9/11 reopened. 49% believe some U.S. leaders knew in advance and they consciously failed to act.
Let's remember the people who died on 9/11, not only with a moment of silence, but by opening our eyes and seeking the truth.
Also, remember this: people who do not believe the official 9/11 story do not doubt that people suffered and died that day. They simply don't believe in the official report about how it happened. Saying that these people are un-American or don't support the troops or firefighters or whoever and should just stand behind the president is idiotic. Remember that this nation celebrates dumping tea, not drinking KoolAid.
While on hold for another queue at IBM, I heard the following lyrics
"It doesn't matter what they say. . .blah blah blah. . .our lips are sealed"
I have always thought that song was really cute. So I googled for the lyrics, which brought me to
The Go-Go's Website. Which brought me to Jane Wiedlin's website. Jane Wiedlin was on a show Sandy and I liked called The Surreal Life" on MTV. And clicking on the "Shopping" page took me to this picture:
So the lead singer of the Go-Go's was Joan of Arc in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, and I have always thought that that person in the movie was really cute. Not as cute as Sandy, or Keanu, but cute in her own little sword wielding way. Which is ironic, because Jane Wiedlin was wielding. . .
And all of this was done while I was holding for help from another group. And that's why the Internet is great.
This past Sunday Annika and I spent some time outside during the boys' naptime. We found a very large grasshopper, which we eventually captured in her bug box. We let it out after it started hopping violently. We didn't want it to get hurt. Here are some nice up close pictures of Mr/Ms Hopper, whose body was at least an inch long.
Found him on the garden cage...
Climbing on a stick...
Sticks are yummy...
A shot for perspective...
One more up close.
After his photoshoot, he hopped away.
I suppose I better throw down a Steve Irwin post. . .
No one really knows what killed him, but I am sure that a combination of the coronor's report and the video will tell the story. But he died doing what he loved. Probably it will be hardest on his daughter, because he was filming footage for her show.
I realize that what I am about to write may offend people who have had loved ones die, but please know that this not my intent.
Steve Irwin's death got me thinking that about how I will die when I am older. I don't want to go out as an old man just waiting for death, unable to do anything. This is especially the case if I am diagnosed with some dreaded disease that there is no hope of a cure for. Irwin died pulling that stinger OUT because he wanted to live. So I believe in fighting for your life. But in cases where I was an old man and I knew I was faced with my own demise, I have thought of other ways to exit the planet:
A long time ago I had a dream, which is a recurring dream. This is how it goes.
It is dark.That's it. The first time I had that dream I knew what it meant. It meant that I wanted a job where I had to travel. In the dream there was no wife. There were no kids.
I am walking home on a cobblestone street.
I enter my home, turn on a few dim lights, and quietly drop my keys onto a small wooden table.
Then I walk upstairs.
Lumberjack Games
