Happy Friday the 13th!

Not much to say here...

How about a couple of links?

I stumbled upon one slick offering from the Library of Congress called The loc.gov Wise Guide by accident. The Library of Congress has some excellent material available online. For links to the "Wise Guide" and other cool stuff, check out the Library's news page.

Have you ever wanted to know when the sun's going to go down or the moon's going to rise? How about for the whole year? Check out the data services page from the Astronomical Applications department of the U.S. Naval Observatory.

Finally, what about the loved ones at home when military members are deployed? The DoD has a website for them. Straight from the site:

"MilitaryHOMEFRONT is the official Department of Defense web site for reliable Quality of Life information designed to help troops and their families, leaders and service providers. Whether you live the military lifestyle or support those who do, you'll find what you need!"

Having just finished a fairly rigorous training program to assist in the operation of a nuclear plant...

Nuclear news interests me greatly. Heck, it's pretty much been my life since 1992. Anyway, some anti-nuke folks are aiming for the industry (they're always looking for some angle) by claiming that we're breaking the law by not being sufficiently outfitted and prepared to shut our plants down safely if there is a major fire. In fact, they have a nicely doctored up document (only the portions that illustrate what they are trying to say are included and highlighted). As somewhat of a parallel development, the Government Accountability Office will be investigating nuclear plant fire standards starting in September. By the way, here is the conclusion (not included in the NIRS document) of the the NRC document (NRC accession number ML071160431) being slightly misrepresented by the Nuclear Information and Resource Service:

"The Commission has concluded, based on the considerations discussed above, that: (1) there is reasonable assurance that the health and safety of the public will not be endangered by operation in the proposed manner, (2) such activities will be conducted in compliance with the Commission's regulations, and (3) the issuance of the amendment will not be inimical to the common defense and security or to the health and safety of the public."

They say that idle hands are the Devil's tools...

Man, if that's the case, the Devil must have had a heyday with me this past week. I have accomplished almost nothing useful. I took the week off from work. Well, let me make that last week and this coming week. It's been a great time to just chill out...

I know I was extraordinarily chilled last week at this time. My next-door neighbor was having a bon voyage party. Unfortunately, he'll be visiting here for the next year. All of us here in the 'hood are wishing him the best...

Truth be known, there was not a great deal of excitement during the week. This evening, the Wife Unit (1 each) had a hankering for catfish. We tried to go to Catfish Cabin II. Unbeknownst to us, the restaurant took an extended holiday from 2 July to 8 July. We'll have to go back. Next stop, Greenbrier Restaurant. As expected, there were a whole lot of people so we decided to check out Greenbrier Bar-B-Que. Amazingly, we were seated immediately. Mmmmm, catfish and hushpuppies! Both of these Greenbrier restaurants are mighty fine!

I suppose I'll end this with a "public service announcement". Given my political inclinations, I believe the federal government is entirely too big. But, since it's not going to get smaller anytime soon, you might as well get some of the information your taxes pay for. Here are two decent sources of information that we all pay for:

The U.S. Government RSS Library from usa.gov
Podcasts from the U.S. Government from usa.gov

One other interesting source of information paid for by the taxpayer but not easily accessible to the taxpayer is reports from the Congressional Research Service (CRS). Fortunately, the Center for Democracy and Technology has seen fit to compile many of the CRS reports that have found their way into the public domain into a more or less centralized clearinghouse.

Y'all have fun now! I know I will...

Happy Birthday USA!

Even though we have our problems, we're still free to try and change the way things are. We're free to earn lots of money, drink lots of beer, go to whatever church we want to and still live among each other even when we don't agree. We're even free to criticise leaders who say they respect our system of justice and the decision of a jury one day and then talk about leaving room for a full pardon the very next day.

I occasionally bring up Libertarians and libertarianism here. I mention this because I think people often have misconceptions about exactly what that means. I've mentioned libertarian to some people and the inevitable "Oh, so you want to legalize drugs?" question comes up. For some reason, that seems to be the only understanding of the principles (and the political party) held by at least some people. Here are some links that might provide a better understanding of libertarian thought:

What is a Libertarian? and other FAQs(from the Libertarian Party website)

The rest of these links have a large amount of in depth info covering many practical aspects of libertarian thought:

The Cato Institute
The Ludwig von Mises Institute
LewRockwell.com
The Reason Foundation

Last but not least, a follow-up from the other day...

The whole e-card scam thing is nothing new, but since I received several in a short time period, I figured that type of scam might be on the rise. The immediate key for me recognizing the scam e-mails I received (in addition to the bogus looking e-mail headers) was the links the e-mails invite you to click. In all of the instances, the link was http://XX.XX.XX.XX where the Xs were numbers to form an IP address. Most places with e-cards will have a domain name as the link. Oh well...

Y'all watch out...

I've received a couple of junky e-mails (just today) saying that someone had sent me an e-card. Just out of curiosity, I clicked the link and my suspicions were confirmed. I was taken to a page where there was a nifty executable file for download. I think I'll go back for further investigation, but I'm sure the executable file is probably viral. Keep a close eye out for that junk, folks...

It's not surprising that the one individual found guilty in the Plame case received a commuted sentence. I won't complain too much because it's perfectly within the President's power to grant reprieves and pardons. The speed with which this one happened is just so suspect. So many of the pardons, reprieves, or sentence commutations granted by this President are from cases that are at least a decade old. It just gives the appearance that no loyal parties who had a part in the little political "Plame game" were going to really be subject to hard time. I'm sure this would have happened in just about any administration...

Speaking of administrations, we were approached by some early supporters of Ron Paul at the weekly Concert in the Park this evening. I'm just waiting to see the Libertarian Party candidates. At least I can thankfully say that Ron Paul does not have the appearance of being a Bush-style Republican. Here's a brief synopsis of Ron Paul's votes on various issues.

Though I knew I hadn't "seen it all", I've seen quite a bit...

I only wish that I could've seen this. Perhaps a recording was made. I am a HUGE fan of the fusion of multiple styles of music. You can read what a Boston Herald reporter had to say about dance/club/electronica mixed with the Boston Pops here. I think that would have been HIGHLY interesting...

Sometimes I wish that I had thought to go see the Boston Pops when I was up in New York. Too late now...

Oh yeah, all fifteen of us made it through the final oral board. Woohoo!

And so it ends...

The culmination of about 18 months of training happened today. The other eleven of the fifteen of us who have gone up for our boards so far have also experienced the satisfactory end of their training. We're all keeping our fingers crossed for the three individuals who go tomorrow...

I love being able to know my schedule far enough in advance that I can say without much doubt that I will be going to see Assemblage 23 in Nashville, TN on September 24. I thoroughly enjoy this band. I just bought Assemblage 23's most recent release titled Meta. There are several good songs but my (currently) absolute favorite is Binary. You might be able to discern why by listening to the "Binary Album Mix" here or the minute long snippet (assuming that it might eventually disappear from myspace.com) at the Meta preview page.

Well, you fine folks have fun! It's time to watch some Lil' Bush...

One interesting thing tonight...

Straight from the archives of the CIA...

Oh yeah, the finale of a year and a half of training should happen tomorrow. Yes indeed, it's oral board time. For those who have no idea of what that means, the Department of Energy also uses orals at their nuclear/nuclear-related facilities. Here is a PDF that provides the DOE's guide to oral boards. Let me tell you, they are IMMENSE fun.

Peace, y'all!

First things first here...

Happy Birthday Ric!

As expected, this evening's Concert in the Park was very good. Having listened to Eyes Around on myspace.com and having seen Slipjig for the first time last year, I didn't expect anything less. It was nice that no last minute thunderstorms popped up in the humid afternoon air...

One thing that caught my eye in the news today was the issuance of several Supreme Court opinions. Those opinions (and others from the 2006 term) can be viewed here. Other useful and up-to-date info can be viewed at Yahoo!'s Supreme Court full coverage page.

Speaking of Yahoo!'s full coverage, I love that feature of Yahoo!. The site provides the most current stories about a number of topics and links to audio, video and related sites about those topics.

Finally, as a public service announcement, it's Lightning Safety Awareness Week.

For those of y'all who live in my little part of the world...

I say support your local independent pizza shop. Village Pizza is in East Limestone right across from the high school. We eat there fairly often and we love the joint. They've been in business for a while and have a nice down-home atmosphere. Besides, their pizzas are rockin'...

We just got back. My best friend's birthday is coming up and he wanted to eat there. We're getting older. However, I still say age is partially a state of mind. Tempus fugit...

'Twas a fairly run of the mill weekend. At least we got some rain this afternoon (somewhat of a rarity around here lately). I was glad that it waited until I got home from hiking on Monte Sano and had a chance to kick the footbag around a bit. Somehow, I guess I find myself amused and entertained very easily. Must have come from growing up as an only child...

Tomorrow night's Concert in the Park will see Eyes Around and Slipjig performing. Should be a fun night...

Well, y'all have fun now! I know I will...

Let's talk about some comedy for a moment...

There's a new show on Comedy Central called Lil' Bush. We saw it last night and, as far as political satire goes, it was pretty funny. Thank you Comedy Central! I hope this show makes it....

Speaking of Bush...

It just so happens that he toured and spoke at Browns Ferry today. Here's what he had to say. Fairly standard stuff...

In this case, I happen to agree with most of what the President said. As usual, I don't put much faith in the usual quips about terrorism and foreign energy dependence, but I can save that for another day. I would like to see nuclear power have a stronger role in power production in this country. Having been involved in military and commercial production of nuclear power, I can say that the professionals in my industry constantly make every attempt to be safe and conservative.

Now for local stuff...

A local group has been successful in getting enough signatures to put a wet-dry issue for the city of Athens on our local ballots in August. I can understand some of their arguments but I completely disagree with the measure. For one thing, alcohol sales have been allowed here for several years now. It's kind of like a Pandora's box that has been opened already. For another, those who are prone to abusing alcohol can and will just go to a different city or county and get their fix. Why kill the tax revenue for the local town when that money will just go elsewhere and people will still get wasted? Perhaps the Athens-Limestone Quality of Life Committee could fund local initiatives to provide assistance to those who are prone to abuse alcohol. I will just ask people to remember to go vote on this (if you're eligible) on August 14...

Peace out, y'all...

I think I've found another band that I have to see live (preferably here in the US)...

They are De/Vision. As far back as the 1980s, I was a moderate fan of Depeche Mode. Heck, I even saw DM in June of 1990...

De/Vision seems to bring back a fair amount of DM's sound and style.

Now a shameless plug for the Party of Principle...

Well, I suppose that I had better move along. We're nearing the final hurdle of our training (I never look forward to oral boards) and I have plenty of other things left to do this evening...

Y'all come back now.....!

To all you dads out there (especially mine)....

Happy Father's Day!

Not a whole lot going on here...

Just got off the nightshift to be ready for daytime hours tomorrow. That entails a rapid transition so I'm working on 24 hours of being awake right now. I'm a machine...

Besides, I've stayed at least semi-busy since this morning so my head can't tell me I'm exhausted.

Peace, y'all!

OK, so I wimped out on the bike thing today (sore leg), but...

I did go here to hike between 8 and 10 miles. What a gorgeous day! I had fun, but by the end, my leg was reminding me why I didn't go for a ride. No pain...

The rest of the day was filled with mundane things for my home and vehicle. Except...

We tried the newest location of Surin of Thailand in Madison this evening. The only one nearby prior to the Madison location was further away in Huntsville. It had been quite some time since we'd been to Surin. All I'll say is that the food rocked (as usual). Also as usual, mine was really spicy. Give this place a shot if you enjoy Thai food...

Well, I think I'll set about trying some of this right now. I bought a few of these last night. Energy drink/malt beverage?!? Who knew? I guess I never paid close enough attention for this kind of thing at the stores. Hopefully it will taste OK...

Well, we hit our first "Concert in the Park" for this summer...

The lineup for this evening was the Creel Family Band (Johnny and June Carter Cash tribute band) and Out & Runnin' (a local bluegrass band). The bands sounded good and it was nice to just chill in the park for a little while. There are some good bands playin' this year so check'em out if you get the chance...

Speaking of things to check out, check out this podcast interview of the (in)famous Rotcod Zzaj. While you're at it, check out Zzaj's podcasts.

The bicycle had its inaugural run today. It's times like those that remind me of just how much I need to quit smoking. I'm happy to say I put 15 miles on it. I intend to make it see many more...

What to do, what to do?

Friday was the start of my stretch of seven days off. I know that by the end of that time I'll be wondering what in the world to do with myself.

As I am often wont to do on my nights off, I ended up going for a little drive this evening. I often find myself staying up entirely too late when I have time off. Oh well, I am definitely nocturnal. Anyway, as I was driving, I saw something that made me chuckle. On my way home, a car pulled out of one of the local strip clubs. I noticed that this car had one of the ubiquitous "God Bless America" Alabama plates. I won't say anything beyond the fact that I found that slightly ironic.

I suppose that I could do a little bit of studying for our last round of oral boards. I'm sure I'll get around to it....

When I'm not doing that or one of a few other things, I plan to find time to take this out for a spin. I need to get out and sweat...

Well, I think I'll watch the rest of Enter the Dragon and then make an attempt to crash.

Peace!

Oh man....

Some word on the sly has it that VNV will be doing a US tour part 3 in November. I absolutely hope that they'll see fit to swing by Atlanta. I would go back to see them in a heartbeat.

Speaking of entertainment...

I remember hearing something a year or two about Atlas Shrugged being made for cinema. I read it in my early 20s and I enjoyed it. Only complaint? It was a little long for my taste. I hope that the movie is successful at conveying some of the ideas explored by Rand in her body of work. Heck, there are still a few movies that I have to see from this year...

And now for something completely unrelated to anything here... A favorite topic of discourse at my last job (I actually do kind of miss those folks) was just how hot the sun was. This NASA site has some answers about that as well as plenty of other info and some awesome pictures.

(or An-nyeong-hi ka-se-yo)

I suppose that today didn't go so bad after 5 hours of sleep...

I believe that I'll definitely be ready to crash tonight. We'll see.

Don't forget to check out the "Jeopardy! Google Daily Challenge". You'll have to register so you can play each weekday until July 13. Hey, a chance to win cash for answering questions.....

Speaking of questions, I have a few about the rationale behind a group like this. I just read this in the news. I might be disillusioned with some of the powers that be, but something about secession just strikes a very dissonant chord in my mind...

Finally, it's over...

Our stretch of continual (interrupted by one day a week) 12 hour days to make this happen has ended. I suppose that it was fun at times (less so at others) and it's definitely pretty cool to say that I at least had some small part in making it happen. I just hope that I can adjust to our normal rotating shift schedule with as little pain as possible.

I had planned on sleeping for several hours this morning after we went and had breakfast. Unfortunately, it was closer to five hours. That's OK. I achieved most everything I aimed to do today. Well, everything with the exception of getting to sleep somewhat early. We had an early dinner with our friends and I got home in time to mow the weeds around my house. Afterward, I engaged in a hack session with my next door neighbor for probably 20 minutes or so. That was fun. Our wives watched and laughed at us...

At least there will be a little more time to do stuff like this for the summer...

Nighty-night y'all!

Although it wasn't exactly an in depth talk between parties who have been adversarial for a quarter of a century...

I suppose that this represented some small amount of progress. I hope so. I'm sure that politicians and the duly elected bozos in office will find a way to destroy any chance at sitting down and attempting to resolve our deep differences with those whom we consider to be a part of the "axis of evil".

Google and Jeopardy? Coming June 4...

I was fortunate enough to have been off work for the holiday yesterday and it just so happened that I took the day before off as well. Very nice. We just chilled out and broke bread with friends and family. Oh, and we checked out Borat Sunday night...

Very wrong but very funny!

Well, it's time to get ready for work.

Peace!

For a study in the absolutely bizarre...

Check out some of the info for "SILENCE!" (a musical adaptation of Silence of the Lambs (not necessarily a family friendly page)). You can also download the opening number from FOX NEWS: THE MUSICAL. Scary! I heard about SILENCE! from an individual at work. Speaking of at least slightly older movies...

WarGames is on TV right now. We were just discussing this movie at work the other night. I enjoyed this movie back in the day...

While I'm on the topic of "global thermonuclear war", it's five minutes to midnight. OK, it's really around eight in the morning here, but the Doomsday Clock is at five to midnight. It will be interesting watching the clock over the coming years.

I'm thinking that it's about time to crash. Bye y'all!

PS: Before I leave, I have to highly recommend something. Run, DO NOT WALK, to your nearest grocery store and buy a pint of either the Creme Brulee or Cinnamon Buns ice cream from Ben and Jerry's. They are both heavenly...

The research can be long and arduous, but...

In this country, we at least have the chance to freely speak our minds and be represented. That's one of the things that makes this country great. To that end, it is sometimes useful to know what our elected officials are considering.

I stumbled across a virtual treasure trove of currently active legislation while going through the Senate's website. Click here (for the current session of Congress) to check it out. After that, all that is required is to contact your Senator or Representative with your thoughts. An easier way is to sign up for the occasional (supposed to be weekly) e-mail at congress.org's "congress.org to go" page. You'll receive an e-mail covering recent and upcoming votes by your Senators and Representative. That avoids a great deal of the legwork involved. However, it is much more brief. I still firmly believe that our style of government has a better chance of working correctly when people interact with their elected officials...

To all you moms out there...

Happy mother's day!

I'm sure that I still can't possibly fathom what kind of stress I caused my mother as a moderate hellion (at least after high school). Thanks for doing a great job...

Suzanne has gone to visit her great and vast ancestral lands in Boaz/Albertville with her dad today. They intend to visit cemeteries and remember relatives who have passed on. I intend to get some good sleep. I missed her before she left this morning because I was a few minutes late leaving work. C'est la vie!

Last week, I read a story in the news and then heard a story on NPR about a new project to catalogue and act as a reference for all of the currently known 1.8 million species of life on Earth. If this project eventually lives up to the hype, it sounds as if it will be an amazing piece of work. Check out some of the demo pages. You've got to love the internets! I do.

As always, y'all have a good day and be sure to come back!

I feel so energized this morning...

However, it's about time to make the attempt to crash. I'm not sure when the second wind hit me, but I was even feeling great at work this morning. Heck, one dude even told me to quit acting so happy. I can't! Besides, one more night and then I'll have a wonderful day off. I almost don't know what to do with myself on those days off...

Want an interesting set of completely contrasting views? One is from a psycho and one is from W. Check these two things out:

As-Sahab Video of Third Interview with Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri – 5/2007

President's Radio Address from 05/05/07

See y'all. I'm outta here...

Whewww!

Thankfully, the whole sleep thing worked out much better today. Yesterday it was only three hours. That's partially what led me to renege on the cigarette thing. My intention (road to hell and all) is that that will ONLY be for the time being. I feel bad about that, but my willpower lost out to the insomnia. I gave it the old college try and the next attempt is coming shortly. As Yoda would say, "No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."

Well, shoot....

It's 10:30 AM here and I should be well into the arms of Morpheus but...

Here I am. The same thing happened yesterday. I'll probably surpass the sleep I got then or at least I hope so. I thought I had adjusted to the night shift fairly well. Perhaps my brain's not telling me to wind down enough. I suppose that something's changed...

Well, I guess that I'd better give the sleep thing another shot. Wish me luck, y'all.

As always, the day off was a great one...

I had some sweet downtime and we went to Outback and had a tasty dinner...

On a more serious note, let's not forget that four years ago today, the "mission" was "accomplished". As always, when I rant about that kind of thing here, it's not a slight to our military. It's a slight to the leadership of this country and their inability to grasp the reality of the situation at hand (particularly back then). They've done better recently by having more sober assessments of the way things are going.

Back to the grind tonight...

Mmm-mmmm good...

It's almost time for another day off. I tend to look for the good in things and I remember that we are well over halfway done....

Carlos Mencia had a great bit on his show last week (4-22). He usually has some great stuff on the show, but this tied right back to something I mentioned here. This one was also wonderful. I was especially fond of the "priest". At least I didn't have to jump through hoops to see the video. Some sites make life a total pain in the butt for people who use non-Microsoft products.

Y'all have fun! And don't forget the new episode of Gene Simmons Family Jewels tonight...

Yee-haaaaaw!

OK, it's been (as of about nine this morning) a week free of the nico-beast. I smoked about a carton a week. That's a little over thirty bucks. If you believe these numbers, that's about 2200 minutes I didn't take away from my life (at 11 minutes a smoke). That's the most important part to me...

Well, ladies and gents, it's time to run. We have to go catch our best friends (and their ever-enjoyable kiddies) for breakfast. Mmmmm, breakfast......

Y'all come back now....

For your viewing pleasure....

Here are the folks I was tied up in a classroom with at Browns Ferry from Jan. 2006 to Feb. 2007.



They were a pretty damn fine group of people. Hope none of them object to being put online...

Tonight I kind of got to wondering...

how these beasties are doing. I know about the cat. She has taken to meowing frequently...

All in all, just another average day...

Come home, see Suzanne for a very little bit, and attempt to crash...

Unfortunately, today's sleep was interrupted in the middle. Once I was up, I found other things to do for an hour. Heck, Steven Wright was on TV for a while. That guy cracks me up...

No cigarettes yet! In fact, it's getting easier. But as always, it will still be a long road ahead. Such is life...

Wow, Wal-Mart was NOT very exciting at 3AM...

At least I got everything I think I require for a few days. I'm actually happy to have gotten out of the house because jackin' around on the computer or checkin' out the boob tube just wouldn't have cut it. Boredom really makes my mouth yearn for some nicotine, but I haven't broken yet. I think I'm truly feeling all of the right motivation this time...

It's going on 2-1/2 days...

You might ask for what....

I've decided that it's high time that I made a real attempt at quitting smoking. I've half-ass tried a few times over the years, but this time feels different. It seems like I have much more desire right now. MUCH MORE! I haven't fired one up since Saturday morning. The crazy thing is that there's not a whole lot of withdrawal anxiety yet. It might come....

Tonight will provide an interesting test of my willpower because I will be absolutely bored most of the night (except for the planned 3AM trip to Wal-Mart). I think that it'll go just fine...

I can't remember the last time...

I slept for 6 hours and felt über-refreshed. I am satisfied...

Though at least a few people at work think I'm an odd bird (particularly for wearing a kilt)....

It's a ways off, but...

In future elections, a great thing to ask a candidate (legislative or executive) would be how they would prevent us from getting into a war that seemingly has no end. Though it's in the past, the Congress relinquished their power to declare war with their open-ended allowance for the President in 2002. I would love to be reasonably assured that the Congress will probe harder the next time. Hillary has been getting hammered for her vote a little bit on the campaign trail. The questioning should continue and grow for the incumbents who voted yea back in 2002...

I finally changed the CD in my car out. I was kickin' it to Prodigy on the way into work last night. I hadn't listened to Firestarter for quite some time...

I'm tired as heck so I'm out of here. Y'all have fun!

This is the worst part of having a day off during the night shift...

I am almost fully acclimated to the hours again, but finding something to do in the wee hours of the morning can be rough. At least there's interaction with other people at work. I do kind of miss (from my last plant, Quad Cities) the ability to work on my off night. Back then, I'd do eight hours so I could see Suzanne before I went in. We did have fun today. We met our best friends for a good dinner at TGIFriday's. One strange thing was succumbing to the sleepy monster around 11PM or so. I didn't figure that I would be able to sleep after I had a triple shot espresso beverage from Starbuck's around 9:30. Fortunately, it was a short nap....

I am still thoroughly captivated! VNV's CD has some awesome stuff....

My ennui led me to read some of the news. I thought that one cool story was about one of Scott McNealy's ventures. It's called Curriki. Another related concept is Open CourseWare. Very cool ideas...

In closing:

Words cannot express the sorrow I (and many other people) feel about the horrible events at Virginia Tech yesterday. I hope for the quickest possible healing for everyone involved.

It feels so good to be alive (not that it ever felt bad)...

I do believe that I'm finally getting into the groove of nights. It's about time. Concerning restfulness, yesterday and the day before were atrocious. I think I'm getting my vamp back on now...

April's been fairly cool so far (wetaher-wise). I haven't been following the weather from where we were in Illinois. I was kind of hoping that it would be consistently warmer here. We had a decent stretch of warmth in March. The heat will come...

Is it time for new internets? Some of these people think so...

http://cleanslate.stanford.edu
http://100x100network.org
http://orbit-lab.org
http://geni.net

Well folks, the time has come. See ya....

I'm obsessed!

Please click read more...

I suppose that it may have been inevitable given my nature. I find something that I absolutely love and become completely fixated. I have not listened to any other music (save for the country music radio that Suzanne made me listen to in the car the other night) since I purchased Judgement on Saturday evening. When I discover something of beauty (lest we forget, eye of the beholder), I focus on it to discover every nuance and analyze exactly what it is that I find so enthralling. I must be weird...

I'm hoping that my sparse amount of sleep today doesn't kick my booty around three in the morning. It's a strange day when I don't sleep well...

Well, if this first day is any indication (no, I haven't even gone in yet)....

I was correct in remembering just how much of a lifesucker the nights can be. Not in terms of sleep....

I actually slept very well. In fact, I got down just before Suzanne woke up. Therein lies the rub. I won't really see her until the weekend. She works here in the daytime. I'll see her on Saturday, Sunday, and my day off on Monday.

It could be worse. As I've told several people in the past, I tend to look at these things relatively. Unlike my time on an aircraft carrier, I still come home every day. There's a lot to be said for the sacrifice of military folks. And let's not forget those who support the military, either. Some of them have to be gone from home quite a bit as well.

I suppose I'd better get stirring now. I have to get ready. Y'all have fun....

I hadn't followed the Imus thing much...

In fact, today was the first time I heard any of the uproar. I would like to hope that I wouldn't have said something like that. But...

I'm guilty of helping to perpetuate a double standard regarding racially charged material. I frequently watched Chapelle's Show and I still enjoy Mind of Mencia. Over dinner on Sunday night, I was noting to Suzanne how Carlos Mencia wouldn't get away with some of the things he says if he was a white male. I've never heard Sharpton raise hell about Chapelle or Mencia. That's no excuse for what Imus said. But it's still a double standard...

Imus has apolgized. He will take a public flaying. However, in light of other racially questionable material that continues to air without a ruckus, I hope that Imus doesn't get the boot...

Last free night for a while...

Sure I'll be off once a week from here on out to June, but it won't approach the nice chill-out state that I've been in since Friday. I didn't succeed in beating the sleep monster last night. I guess I was more beat down than I had thought. That can happen when you party too hard. I think I'm ready to go for tonight...

It has been weird being nearly idle for several days in a row. But I wouldn't exactly say that I've missed being at work. Tonight we ate pizza with a couple of friends and their kids. Always fun!

For what it's worth, Suzanne and our friends thought I looked super spiffy in my concert shirt and kilt get-up....

By the way...

I just remembered that I had actually heard the show closer (yes, I'm still on that) before...

I had looked up some VNV stuff on YouTube and ran across this little ditty. The video's not "official" or anything but it's fairly well done. The visuals at the show for this song were SWEET!

Phenomenal!

As usual, VNV put on a KILLER show! The supporting band (And One) did a great job as well. VNV did a nice mix of new and old and even had a couple of tunes from their upcoming release. Speaking of their upcoming release (Judgement) (go here for samples), it is a kickin' piece of work. There are a number of things I dig about VNV. A few of them are complexity, emotion, and grinding beats. Judgement does not disappoint. I also have to get some of their older stuff if I can. They did an older piece that I don't recall hearing (I probably just don't remember it) before. Moving....

As an added bonus, I got up early enough and out on the road soon enough to get back and have an Easter lunch with Suzanne and my in-laws. We also got to go out to eat with my Mom and Kenneth this evening. I figured that we'd better do that since this will be the last time we can go out to eat with them on a Sunday night for a while.

Time to try and stay awake until the morning....

Y'all have fun!

The zero hour approaches....

I'm just about to set out on my trek to Atlanta. I figured that I should make some last minute java. Suzanne and I just got back from having breakfast with Ric, Teresa, William and the kids. I think it's going to end up being a LONG day (and night). That's what caffeine and Red Bull are for. I'm ready to go! Suzanne's going to go visit with her family. I'll bet there are still tickets to the show. If y'all can make it, I highly recommend seeing VNV....

For everyone who celebrates it, Happy Easter (in advance)...

Peace!

Woohoo! I'm starting my several days off a little bit early...

I just called in to work to take an extra day off. I hate burning the time, but after the last couple of days, I'm SO ready to just chill for a little while. Plus, this will give me a chance to adjust to vampire time....

Of course I'm still looking forward to seeing VNV Nation in HotLanta!

The news was just talking about the latest foodborne (peanut butter) Salmonella outbreak. See more here. It doesn't take much.

Here's some decent news from the Middle East. It's always cool to see situations like that work out for the best.

Burning the American flag is STUPID!

However, I happen to be one of "those" who doesn't think it should be against the law. There's a long discourse about that. But the heart of the matter is that although the act offends many people, it causes no direct harm to anyone. Where are the laws against other forms of stupid? Anyway, it seems that three Yale students were arrested for burning a flag. When I first saw the headline, I thought to myself "Oh crap, not another silly flag-burner case!" The biggest problem in this case is that the flag was affixed to someone else's home. They need a good flogging for that. The Supreme Court ruled that flag-burning was protected under the First Amendment in 1989. See here for more of a history about flag burning. I remember when that little Constitutional amendment about flag desecration was introduced and narrowly defeated just last year. As can be expected, the measure was re-introduced in the House in January 2007 as H.J.Res.9 and H.J.Res.12. Time to fight again...

Ticket? Check. Hotel? Check.

I wouldn't exactly say it was self-mutilation....

New holes in my ears? You've probably guessed it, check.



In case you wondered exactly what's new, there's a hoop on each ear right up about the middle of the ear and close to the outside. I know it's probably kind of odd, but look at the source. I actually cringed a little bit as the needle broke through the cartilage....

I think the next art (for Art) will be a little ink.

Well, that's all I have to say about that. We're supposed to get some stormy weather this evening. Hopefully we'll finally get some rain.....

T-5 days and counting....

I'm so ready to take a couple of days off to head over to Atlanta to see VNV...

Now I just have to work on setting up a decent hotel room in which to crash after the show. I suppose that it should be fairly close to the concert venue....

Now that's done...

I'm strongly considering a little bit more self-mutilation (in the form of a piercing) tomorrow night. I would have done it today, but the place right down the street was closed. I'm still debating exactly what type of piercing(s) to get. I'll probably do something from here.

Nice day for a....

All good things...

must come to an end. Wait, maybe it's supposed to be "come to those who wait." Today, it happens to be the first. Not necessarily unexpected, but still as much of a pain. For the first time in quite a while, I (along with about half of my compadres from the past year) will have the pleasure of the night shift for a month and a half. I don't necessarily hate the shift since I'm actually somewhat vampy. I just won't see my wife as much. And seeing our best friends, my mom, and my in-laws as often will pretty much be right out the window. But stuff happens and only seems fair to those currently pulling nights. Besides, it might be fun for a change...

Suzanne let me know today that Cats is going to be in Huntsville for two days near the end of May. I wouldn't mind seeing it again. And I'd love to see Sarah Brightman again. She was tremendous! I'd very much love to see Bond as well.

Well, it's late (we ate dinner with our best friends this evening) and I have to crash soon. Until later...

w00t!

I fetched my ticket from a local retailer this evening. See?





Come to find out, my wife's family from Atlanta is coming here for Easter weekend. I guess it's a good thing she's not choosing to head over there with me.

The latest South Park is pretty funny. They're doing a little parody of 24 and several other cultural phenomena. We're watching the episode from 3/28/2007. Let me just note that (as usual) it is VERY WRONG. SO VERY WRONG....

By the way, if you're so inclined, check out some of the samples from the upcoming VNV Nation releasecalled Judgement. I'd be happy if they had the CD for sale before the official release date (April 10, 2007).

By the way, I believe that I heard a rumor about a new Lords of Acid album in the works for this summer. That would be sweet.

Holy schnike!?!

Yahoo! is going to be offering unlimited e-mail storage. As noted in the post at the link, this is supposed to begin in May 2007. I've been a Yahoo! Mail user for a long time and unlimited space seems pretty amazing...

Speaking of Yahoo! stuff...

I started a Yahoo! group for 1988 graduates from Butler High School (Huntsville, AL) a few years ago in anticipation of our approaching 20 year anniversary. Tempus fugit! Feel free to join if you're an '88 grad.

With the upcoming political season gearing up, here's a little PSA to check out the candidates when possible. Plus, see what your elected representatives in government are doing. Last but not least, sort the crap from the facts. I can't wait to watch the upcoming election season unfold...

Although it was my first day back to work...

It turned out to be an OK day. I was actually occupied for a major portion of the day. The most exciting part was making something along these lines ready for operation on one of our units ready for operation after about twenty years. We were attempting to make this stuff work on Sunday but it didn't all go down as planned. They moved on it yesterday as well, but had a fair amount of the Tennessee River pouring into our plant (as I understand it). We had some small leaks today but they were mostly fixed by the time I left. It couldn't have even approached the Navy's flooding trainers like this.

Then I came home to some great dinner. Add to that some steamed frozen veggies and most of a bottle of the Riesling wine (Biltmore Estate Riesling) from here and I'm set for the evening.

I just wonder how much joy lies in store tomorrow...

I mentioned harmless fun last time. I tend to think that this would approach the summit of fun (as far as I'm concerned). I'm certain this won't happen this year, but I'd love to visit sometime in the future.

Ever want news from a different point of view? Check out one (or more) of these:

Xinhuah
Pravda
AlJazeera English
Islamic Republic News Agency (Iran)
North Korea's Korean Central News Agency

As usual, my day off was tremendous...

Although, one thing I suppose I miss out on when I'm off is my daily ritual of downing a spoonful of this crazy stuff. I tell everyone that it will keep me from getting sick. Heck, it's worked so far. I always forget about the unopened bottle that sits behind my coffee pot here at home....

I have been known to do some silly things. There was that time when I downed about half of an eight ounce cup of pickled egg vinegar. I half figured that the desire to do lunatic things like that would have disappeared by age 36, but I guess I was wrong. In fact, we were driving home the other night and I turned to Suzanne and suggested that we engage in a Chinese Fire Drill at the next red light. She didn't want to play. I just might do it next time. All a little bit of harmless fun...

I'm not normally one for much television, but both Suzanne and I LOVE Gene Simmons Family Jewels. The new season started last night. All I can say is that it's still great this season. By the way, check them out on MySpace.

I still think I'm going to be able to swing Atlanta. Woohoo!

And there I was....

Scoping out my current favorite band and noticing that they were going to be playing at The Masquerade in Atlanta. Now, the show in Hotlanta happens to be near the last few regularly scheduled days of our outage. I had previously told Suzanne that I didn't intend to miss out on any of my overtime days. So....

When I came home last night, I suggested that I might miss out on a couple of my OT days to go see the show. By the way, I highly recommend VNV Nation if you have any interest at all in electronic dance music and have a chance to go see them. Suzanne brought up my previous statement. Hey, things change! I've seen VNV twice before and loved their show each time. If I can swing it (and my job will let me take the time off), it looks like I'm going to see them again. I'm stoked!

Some other faves (at least from MySpace):

Sarah Brightman
Lords of Acid
Pride and Fall
Covenant
Claire Voyant

I'm sure that I am omitting some excellent bands. Sorry!

What a day......

On our current schedule, my off day is Monday. I accomplished a little bit, but generally I just loafed around and took relaxation to an extreme. My ritual for Mondays has come to include an hour long soak in our jet tub. For some reason, it had been YEARS since I actually soaked in a bathtub. So refreshing...

Almost makes me forget about griping about the status quo in DC...

But while I'm talking about that...

Here's something useful and not actually ranting. The State Department publishes a weekly report on the status of things in Iraq. We have done some great things there and I surely hope things get better for them after over three decades of brutal repression. Any way, if you're so inclined, check out the "Iraq Weekly Status Report".

Two other links of interest if you enjoy governmental affairs (as I do):

Browse Daily Issues of the Congressional Record for the 110th Congress

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents: Main Page

Well, it's time to prepare for the start of another six day stretch, so I'm outta here. Peace!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day y'all!

Darn folks, long time, no see....

By the way, Sláinte! Too bad the package store was out of the draught bottles (cans, too) of Guinness.....

I don't think I ever mentioned it, but we moved (in September 2006) to a nice new house in Limestone County. Check it out:



Been busy as hell at work, but that's OK because it rakes in the dough. I'm just stoked to be done with a classroom for a while. Here's what an individual might look like after a rough day at work at a nuclear plant. For what it's worth, I thought I looked pretty cool.




Heck, I might even save the paper suit for Halloween. I wish I had a little bit more time to work on making some tunes, but that will come. The worst part of our 12 hour, 6 days a week thing is that you can miss out on a portion of life. DO what you can with what you have...

I talked to my dad this evening and found out that he's heading to the Aloha State. I'm thinking that we might have a little trip to plan for in our future...

Yo! What's happening out there in the aether?

First thing, here's an MP3 I've made for you. Might be weird, but look at the source....

Rants? Not too much... Except:

I heard someone very recently say that they received an e-mail talking about how Barack Obama was not suited to be the President. The e-mail mentioned how Obama might be a radical Muslim, had an atheist mother, a radical Muslim father, and so on. I thoroughly believe that the recipient finds this to be the gospel truth and is probably predisposed to believe anything along those lines. I can't believe that that kind of CRAP has started this early. It figures. Now, snopes.com might not always be perfect (very few things are, of course), but at least they cite sources when discussing urban legends. Here's the snopes.com write-up of a very similar "myth" that is probably very close to the e-mail that was received. All that I ask is that people consider their sources of info and do their own research before blindly heeding the inevitable stream of BS propaganda to which they will be subjected over the next two years. PLEASE!

Kudos (yes, I said kudos) to the Bush administration for recently having at least a small reversal in their stance on the oversight of surveillance of American citizens as alluded to in the news recently. Here's what Senator Pat Leahy had to say about this and other things in a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. For a fair and balanced look at things (just like Fox News), here's the prepared testimony of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for the same hearing. I sure hope that the more level-headed (and Constitutional) approach toward crime and terrorism fighting take root in Washington during the next two years.

Shonuff', leave it to Mr. Vice President "F-Bomb" Cheney...

to accuse Iraq policy critics of aiding and abetting Osama bin Boogieman. As I mentioned in my previous post, for this group of yahoos, it's par for the course. The run-up to Iraq was full of thinly veiled threats of the "smoking gun" that might become a "mushroom cloud" and vague allusions to Iraqi involvement with 9/11. So, we change thrust from the individual ("remember, wanted: dead or alive") who we knew was mainly responsible for the 9/11 atrocities to the clown who saw some support from the U.S. back in the 80s. Yep, in 2003, it was "Iraq, here we come." Couple that diversion with poor war planning, and this administration has done far more "playing into the hands of bin Laden" than any critic could ever hope to avoid. Leave a complete power vacuum in a country like Iraq when you haven't even come close to finishing the mission in another country and don't go in with enough military in the first place and guess what... you've created an extraordinarily fertile terrorist training ground. Thank you Bush administration.

And the headline read.....

"Bush: War skeptics 'proposing nothing'"

Now, I'm not wholly against the "surge". I happen to feel that it won't really change much. What am I against?

This administration has had its share of mistakes. To this day, I believe that we didn't commit enough troops to Afghanistan to fully get the job done. Afghanistan aside, I didn't necessarily agree with the Iraq thing. Now, nobody came and asked me, but we went in guns blazing and potentially believing that our military would be showered with flowers and candy. We are there. Now, I probably happen to be one of the few with my political affiliation who believe that it would be a mistake to just outright leave Iraq to solve all of its problems completely on its own. But, I believe that we could do much more to show the Iraqi government that we mean business when we say that they will have to take over for themselves in a relatively short amount of time. Bush's speech gave that notion lip service by saying something like "I've made it clear to the Prime Minister and Iraq's other leaders that America's commitment is not open-ended."

Bush asks what critics would recommend. I would recommend the attempt to fully implement the 79 recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. The report was close to nine months in the making. The group cost the American taxpayer $1,000,000. Considering the cost of some other things, that's not too bad. But, the people who developed the report are highly regarded individuals with significant experience in the fields necessary to formulate a potentially effective course of action to move forward in Iraq. Unfortunately, the administration's implementation of that course of action will only be piecemeal. Par for the course...

That is what I am against.

Oh no, now I've gone and done it...

Got a PlayStation 2 for Christmas and one of the games we got was MAGIX Music Maker Deluxe for PS2. I've been playing around with it so I've now created a MySpace artist profile. Check it out, if you dare...

Holy crap, multiple posts in the same month....

Yo, yo, yo, wazzzzzzzuppppppppp?

I trust and hope that everyone's holiday festivities went down very well. Ours kicked bootay!

It was awesome being home for Christmas without the rush of having to drive 10 hours a day later to be back in time for work.

One of the things Suzanne and I bought ourselves was a Sony PS2. Our first reason was DDR. We tried the PS2 DDR game a few weeks ago at the home of our best friends. We started out with Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA for ourselves. The only other game we currently have is the MAGIX Music Maker Deluxe edition for PS2. Neither of us are ballsy enough to DDR in public. But, I totally dig the music maker game that we now have. Many of my waking moments since Christmas day have been spent messing around with making music from graphical samples. Here's my first attempt at making music with a PS2. It's in .wma format... Hope you like it! It's WWEEIIRRDD!!

Fröhliche Weihnachten und glückliches neues Jahr 2007!!!

For those of you who are Germanically challenged:

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (2007)!

On that note, Suzanne and I just passed our 14th wedding anniversary. I told her in person of course, but I'll say it here as well.

Happy Anniversary!

Back in those days (not long before we got married) when I used to regularly attend a dance club in Orlando, FL called The Edge, there was this totally popular dance song that somehow seemed fitting for this sad day. Great song but bad news:

James Brown is...

I pinch!

However, probably no more pinching.....

Unless....

A Libertarian candidate for AL governor?

Vote Nall Y'all...It's Just Common Sense

Checkit...

Interesting video

This is a test of the emergency bloggedcat system...

This is only a test.

Hello again....

I'm not dead yet! Just took a little break. I'm sure I'll have more to say. Besides, I'm testing something.

SO there I was feeling froggy one day...

I've praised Knoppix in various places in the past, but I've never tried it out myself. I love the idea of an "easy-to-use" alternative OS that runs from a CD (and doesn't require installation). I downloaded Knoppix last night and burned the CD from the .iso. I had problems making the wireless work, but long story short, I did some research and just like Jay said in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, I made that shit work. This is a pretty slick and easy to use little distro and I'll be playing around with it some more. Give it a shot! More later... Suzanne wants to go eat dinner.

Damn, where the hell have I been?

I rarely use my desktop computer and my laptop was out of commission for a couple of weeks. I am indeed still among the living...

And I fixed my laptop!

For a diversion, check out my new moblog. I've finally joined the 21st century by getting a cell phone.

Perhaps this will bring about a more earnest dialogue of privacy choices/practices/issues in this Patriot Act/DCS1000/"War on Terror" America that we all live in. Are you bothered that something like this could happen and the company involved could keep it hidden (unless you live in California or it's discovered by the media)? I'm going to contact my Senators and suggest that they get to work on this.

Happy New Year (a week late)...

If I wasn't working New Year's morning and sleeping the next day, I was driving to Chicago to see the kickass show that I saw (VNV Nation w/ CodeR23), partying until the wee hours of the morning just to wake up the next morning to drive back home through crappy weather and getting ready to remove the snow from our driveway. I suppose it's all good! While I'd rather not put up with the snow (or at least as much as we get here), certain more southerly government agencies don't appear to need my services. I like what I'm doing here and now...

As Suzanne has mentioned recently, this isn't the first time I've driven in junk weather to go have fun. Hell, why let a little snow get in the way of having fun? I think that the differences in our views on the answer to that question lie in the fact that she spent all of the first 22 years of her life in the Deep Dixie South.

Yes, I know that the situation is much more complicated but ponder this anyway...

$35,000,000 to six countries thus far and the southeast Asia region in general. I'm sure that will grow and we already put out a great deal of foreign aid as it is. The disparity just strikes me as ironic. Awwww hell, what does it matter? We're borrowing much of the money that we spend anyway.

In happier news, I'm going to Chicago next week to see VNV Nation.

Sometimes I'm too greedy for my own good. Our scheduler was asking about overtime this morning and I agreed without hesitating (or thinking about it). I agreed to work Friday night (11-7). When I got home this evening, I told Suzanne. There are two things about those hours. Yes, it's New Year's Eve. That sucks but we're both normally asleep before midnight anyway. The worst part of it is that I'm already working the day shift on Friday. Love of money?

Blawhg humbug....

No, I don't really mean that! I suppose it might look like I'm slacking here. Yep! I'm slacking...

I haven't lost my skeptical/cynical view of the powers that be. In fact, I'm more down on Shrubbie and company than ever before. Rummy needs to go. The arguments of people like John Warner and Richard Lugar that ousting Rummy would be "too disruptive" can be rebutted by reminding them that the position would be changing hands if John Kerry had been victorious in November. Our system is supposed to be able to deal with change. Want another reason for my continued skepticism? Dan Senor was yapping on one of those Fox News prime-time shows the other night. He reiterated the recurrent mantra of how freedom and democracy in the Middle East should lead to a drop in terrorism. And here I thought that the terrorists (and perhaps the base of people from which they are recruited) hated our freedom...

I think I might be growing slightly cynical of my cynicism. There's more where that came from and I'm sure that I'll have plenty to bitch about in the coming years.

One other reason for my temporary disappearance was that I wasn't feeling absolutely well for the past week. I am feeling much better now. Now I just have to work three more shifts over the next couple of days.

On to other things...

There are some big things in the works for my company.

Looking for some unique music?

The Neshama Alma Band, with Zzaj

Jesters of Yestermorrow

Hello again, world!

I suppose it's been a little while since I've blogged. Oh well, there's other stuff to take care of.

What have I missed? I didn't say happy birthday to Suzanne online the other day (the 11th). Don't worry, I told her happy birthday in real life. I also missed sending a birthday "Wazzup?" to Debbie. Happy birthday (late)! Since it's the 14th, I can also send a birthday greeting on to my grandmother. Happy Birthday!

It's also good to see Rummy being forced to defend himself.

Speaking of cool Google tools...

Google announced their "Google Suggest" tool the other day. I hadn't heard about it, but it's fairly interesting. I like the most recent thing that Google announced. Google will soon become a repository for some books. I love the innovation that Google is showing.

I suppose that it was inevitable...

One of the drug companies that markets a treatment for influenza has made a "Desktop Flu Tracker" available. You could always visit here but the flu tracker is a nice centralized tool with somewhat of a spiffy (if not a bit cutesy) interface.

Art's not here man! Yeah, you might think I'm here, but between work and sleep and spending the little bit of time I have left (between those two alternatives) with Suzanne today and tomorrow I don't really have time to answer any e-mails or anything. Sorry!

I did renew my childrenofacid.com membership last night. I've been on there for a long time. Suzanne thinks I'm crazy. She may be right!

With a lot of attention focused directly on the current UN Secretary General...

I figured I'd look a little more into the post. Is it strange that there hasn't been a North American Secretary General? I'm not necessarily very supportive of the UN anyway. Here are five reasons.

We were talking about a number of topics at work the other day. Iraq, Vietnam, the French, Shrubbie, etc...

One topic that arose was the Vietnamese language. Following my usual surfing habits, I followed a link of interest from that page to this page. I enjoy language studies but don't follow up too much. One other thing I discovered a few months ago was a web-based trainer called the "Basics of Iraqi Arabic". Back when I first joined the Navy, I was given the choice between being a nuke and a language specialist. I'm happy with the choice I made. To that end, I should probably be getting ready for the civilian continuation of nine years as a Navy nuke. Yep, more vamp hours tonight...

Sometimes I'm forgetful and I don't remember if I put this link up...

Press the assorted buttons to hear a variety of Dubya phrases. Here's another Dubya soundboard.

Speaking of entertaining online Shrubbie stuff, view the Quick Time video here.

As Suzanne mentioned, we did end up hitting this place tonight. I had a damn flavorful filet mignon and a couple of glasses of their locally brewed stout beer. Damn fine food!

I find it amusing that this assclown calls for Kofi Annan to step down from his position at the UN partially because Annan was in charge while activities were going on during Annan's period of leadership that could have fueled and funded the current Iraqi insurgency. Does that mean that Donald Rumsfeld should step down, Norm? Some insurgency-fueling/support-stirring activities have occurred within the DoD under Rummy's watch. "But, but, but... that's different!" If this guy wrote an editorial asking for Rummy's two-week notice, I'd be satisfied and apologize for being a skeptical ass. Until then... For the record, Coleman voted "Yea" on the pork-filled $388 billion appropriations measure and "Yea" on the bill to raise the deficit ceiling from $7,384,000,000,000 to $8,184,000,000,000. I thank you and your Congressional pals for using American taxpayer money wisely.

The DoD sent an early Christmas/New Year's message to a number of troops very recently. "Four more years... four more years..." I hope the electorate majority is satisfied with their ballot choice by 2008. The Senator from Massachusetts wouldn't have been much different.

We were going to go out to eat tonight...

However, our driveway looked like this:



We're hoping that tomorrow night will be a better night to go out. I'm not too worried about driving in the tiny amount of snow that we received, but the conditions are too much like those from two years ago right around this time. That's when we were hit on the I-74 bridge and the woman (the one who inspired my "Art giving the net the bird" picture) who did the hitting took off from the scene.

Our kitty sat at the door checking out the weird white stuff falling out of the sky for much of the night. See?



Check out my myspace.com profile. Just another diversion...

The word of the day is free...

Here are the numerous definitions of free from the Yahoo! education reference pages. When talking about the "free market", I think I like the fourth or fifth definition. Demoncrats and neo-Republicons seem to support the principles of organizations like the UN and WTO and other international bodies. Just today, Dubya talked about attempting to create more compliance (through Congress) with the WTO regulations. This is the same Republicon majority Congress that is supposed to be helping the Shrub lower the deficit. And yet they still find plenty of pork to throw into the mix. Back to free trade and the WTO, I don't see a chance for free trade to work when many thousands of pages of documents bind it. Check out the WTO "panel reports" for trade issues against the United States. The market should regulate the market. Instead, we have a plethora of committees that believe that they can outsmart all of the forces that go into making goods flow equitably to and from all of the countries of the world. Free my ass...

This Ukraine thing...

George, one of the best ways to lead is by example. Our elections should have been 100% transparent. I know that 100% can't be achieved, but we can and should aim high. Hell, the Air Force does. I'm sure that our elections were fairer than the ones stirring up so much crap. However, let the people there sort it out. Why are we so interested in seeing the opposition win? Are we driving a dangerous wedge between potentially strong allies like Putin and America by being so adamant about the outcome and possible fixes? Is the desired Ukrainian leadership worth that possible rift? I'm sure (as sure as John Kerry was about an $87,000,000,000 vote) that our brilliant leaders are asking these questions of themselves. Maybe we should let the natural forces of freedom work for once. We might not have as much "support" in the short term, but we wouldn't be viewed as attempting to meddle in the affairs of other countries. Before we go and "fix" any more countries, we need to rewire that "beacon light" that "guides freedom-loving people everywhere". Fix this place first.

Is Martha Stewart so damn out of touch with real people that she failed to consider the fallout (and double entendre) that would accompany revelation of her choice of smuggling methods?

I was glancing at John C. Dvorak's blog this evening.

It's old news by now, but he posted about a website where people are apologizing to the world for Shrubbie's victory. I found that mildly funny. In fact, I find that almost as funny as the people who vowed to leave the country for four years. I wonder if the one-way airline ticket sales to foreign countries reflect the many vows that were being made. I doubt it.

There was a nice, short speech given in the House last week about moral values and the morality of allowing the national debt to grow to 69% of the GDP of the United States. The speech is in the center column of this .pdf file from the GPO. Democrat solution = tax more. Republican solution = tax less, spend more and we'll just make more money or something. Something is wrong with both of those.

Check out the latest issue of Secrecy News from the Federation of American Scientists. The large version of the satellite picture of Fallujah is amazing.

Anyway, back to the sorryeverybody.com thing... I won't apologize but I will vow to fight the dumbest legislation/policy that comes out of our government over the next four years through all civil methods available. Unless things get totally out of hand, there won't be any revolutions or anything. Sorry!

Attempt #3...

I started contemplating this post at around 8:30 P.M. Central Standard Time. In the meantime, my laptop spontaneously rebooted and then blogger.com decided to be a beeeyaatch. It's a totally slow night and I'm sitting around veggin' with a piña colada. Yeah, so it' smy fourth one...

It all started while we were kickin' back watching the 1986 movie version of Little Shop of Horrors. An hour into that, Suzanne went back to watch one of her daily soaps. I'm not the soapy type so I sat in the living room watching the umpteenth repeat of The Matrix on one of the movie channels. That was only until something else came on.

As much time as I spend using the computer (right beside Suzy), you might find it odd that I haven't checked my main e-mail account for close to a week. When I logged on this evening, there was an invite to join myspace.com from my dad that was close to a week old. I had seen MySpace before so I figured "What the hell?" I went on over and signed up. We'll see how that works out...

Where in the hell is this dude? One would think that his incarceration would stay in the news. Instead, we are force-fed the elections, the Peterson case, and last week's basketbrawl. Speaking of old news, what in the hell ever happened to the case of the bomb-collared pizza guy?

One of the movies I glanced at after growing slightly bored with The Matrix was 8 Mile. One interesting thing came to mind... 8 Mile has overtones of a young individual trying to find himself. One of my favorite recent sci-fi flicks is Star Trek: Nemesis. The thing that came to mind is the question of what Marshall Mathers would have turned out to be if he had been an average suburban white kid. We frequently have discussions at work about morality and upbringing and genetics and environment. Very few things are certain. Somehow, the discussion always degrades to a "God's about to call us back" vs. "alien teenager is about to press Ctrl-Alt-Del on his Universe Sims game" match. That's a certainty.

SO is piña colada number five...

At work the other night, one of the control room operators said he had visited this blog...

He said, "You're an angry young man." The link he used to get here had the following picture...





He followed the link from Achim's site. I took that picture after being on the receiving end of a hit-and-run.

I tried to reason that I wasn't really so angry. Thinking more about it, I realized that I probably am angry. I received a publication from the union I belong to the other day. They presented their editorial view of how they wished that the election results had been different. Of course, they were coming from a "labor-friendly" angle. John Kerry, friend of labor, one of the senators who voted yea on NAFTA. The union presents a grandiose vision of an attempt to figure out why 33% of its membership voted for Dubya. If they haven't figured that out yet...

I'm often pissed at the people who won the election, too. I won't dredge up all that negativity right now. I'll have four more years that should provide ample opportunity to present my jaded view of the world's power brokers. I will bring this up, though. If the administration wants to do something about Iran, our "street cred" has been damaged in the eyes of many of those who are in a position to bring diplomatic power to bear.

Additionally, this was quite a sickening report... More par for the course I suppose.

During the campaign, my candidate was on a Faux News daytime television show. Linda Vester asked Michael Badnarik about his view on Iraq. He provided his answer and she asked him, "Have you been there?" Hey, I don't think she's been there either so she has to rely on Fox News for info... I can tell you I haven't been there. There ARE good things going on there. There are bad things going on as well. Bad things also happened when the megalomaniac was in charge. One thing that I'll continue to find funny is that we deemed those actions not war-worthy when the megalomaniac was fighting against the Iranians. One of several future dangers that I see is that we are providing a training and breeding ground for future jihadists. For a decidedly non-Faux News view of events in Iraq, click here. I'm rambling... Sorry!

Anger isn't always a bad thing. If you utilize anger to attempt to bring change through the peaceful channels we have in place in this country, you've done a damn fine thing. I don't think I'm there yet, but I've got four more years.

Suzanne and I just returned from Coralville, IA.

I wanted to check out the membership of Mensa's local chapter. We tried to see if they were going to be at Old Chicago last week, but that didn't materialize. No biggie! Some of my cohorts from work were there and Suzanne and I had great pizza and great beer (I had the beer and Suzanne refrained) and I got to be my usual geeky self. The restaurant we met at this evening was called Saigon to Bangkok. It was a fairly small place but it had a pleasant atmosphere and great food. We don't frequently drive an hour to dine out but I'm glad we did. I've been telling Suzanne (probably since we got married) that I was going to join Mensa.

The "phishing" spam craze must be growing insanely out of control. The local Iowa NBC affiliate ran segments about phishing yesterday. When the local media in the corn wilds of Iowa/Illinois starts doing phishing scam stories, you know that something's out of control. I always go one step further with phishing scams. I report them to the Internet Fraud Complaint Center and the bank that is being targeted. Ignoring this crap won't make it stop. Fighting it probably won't make it stop either, but the odds of someone being hammered for fraud perpetration are better if people report it.

I just noticed a link to a new Google feature I haven't seen before.... See the Google Scholar. I'll have to see what that's all about later.

Why later? Well, unfortunately (or fortunately considering the monetary value), I signed up to do some overtime this evening. See y'all tomorrow! Suzanne is about to crash and I'm not far from heading out the door.

I forgot to talk about the daily phish...

One BIG HINT that the suspicious e-mail you've received might be a phishing scam...

When you hold your mouse pointer over the link/graphic that points you to a web site and the address that displays in your status bar isn't that which you would visit to access your bank, you've probably received a scam. The common thing I've seen in the "phishing" e-mails lately is an address like this (the series of four numbers (218, 158, 230, and 101) commonly called the dotted quad and the page and directory will likely be different):

http://218.158.230.101:87/b/index.htm

I received one e-mail today (the web site was closed down by the time I started checking) that had an address that looked like this:

http://%32%31%38%2e%31%35%38%2e%32%33%30%2e%31%30%31:%38%37/%62/%69%6E%64%65%78%2E%68%74%6D

If you wanted to figure out what in the hell that URL would actually point to (the easy way), visit here and enter the URL in the form.

Banks don't send out e-mails that have links like that. Plus, a bank shouldn't be sending you e-mails asking you for your personal info. It just doesn't work like that...

So, there we were...

When Suzanne got home from work this afternoon, she didn't feel like making dinner. Hey, that was cool. The question we had was what we should do about it. We ended up going to Steak 'n Shake. Not bad... It had been a while since we visited there.

Afterwards, I got a wild hair up my arse and wanted to run by Best Buy. I haven't had any problems with Best Buy, but I know some people who really hate that place. Unfortunately, it's the only electronics-store-in-a-box around these parts. Suzanne and I both wanted a new cable modem. We figured that the rental from the cable company seems like it's old and possibly, well, "busted". Besides, why pay more money to the cable company? Oh yeah, I broke down and did something I never figured I would do. I bought Eminem's new release.

I hooked the modem up as soon as we returned home. It took the usual fifteen minutes (probably a little more because I wasn't really counting) waiting on the phone to talk to a customer service rep just to answer a very simple question about our account. Beyond that, there were NO problems. I was a little surprised because our modem wasn't on the list of approved or compatible hardware. Hey, what the hell, it works. Hopefully it will solve a little problem we've been having.

I really should be in the arms of Morpheus, but damn it all, I'm just not tired enough and the last of the Star Trek: The Next Generation vintage of movies is on one of the movie channels.

And then there were six....

Six people who have decided to vacate their positions in Dubya's administration. How many more people will Dubya drive away (OK, maybe it's not that bad)? The dynamics of Powell's resignation have appeared especially interesting. Hey, maybe I'm reading more into the situation than there really is. It'll be interesting to see how Condoleezza Rice (assuming she's confirmed) makes the transition from National Security Advisor to Secretary of State. It'll also be interesting to see who is picked as the National Security Advisor. What we really need are more hawks in the halls of power....

We just finished watching this show on the Discovery Times channel. Truthfully, I only half-heartedly watched it and Suzanne barely glanced up from her laptop. What I did see of it seemed like a brief but informative synopsis of U.S.-Saudi relations before and after 9/11.

Back when I started this blog, I had just discovered the CIA World Factbook and started linking "a country a day" for a while. While surfing through the State Department's website tonight, I found this. From there, I moved on to the various country studies available from the Library of Congress. Hey, I may not always like our government, but I'll always love this country. Besides, our tax money is funding this stuff so we might as well access it.

It's immensely sad (Advance warning: This post contains profanity. If you don't like that, contact the FCC and/or read no further.)...

That Saving Private Ryan has fallen prey to the "values war" that started coming to its height after the Super Bowl this year. Nearly 30% of ABC's 225 affiliate stations wouldn't air the movie for fear of indecency accusations. I didn't watch Saving Private Ryan when it aired several nights ago. However, I have seen it and I thought very highly of it. Yes, there was graphic violence. There was also profanity. From what I understand, ABC went to great pains to remind the viewers of that fact. Reminiscing on the "wardrobe malfunction", there were no such warnings. I'm not bothered by profanity OR nipple-shielded breasts. If I had children and I wasn't warned beforehand (e.g. the Super Bowl halftime show), I might be slightly miffed but the world wouldn't be at an end. However, the uproar about Saving Private Ryan is uproariously sickening to me.

I've never been in the thick of battle. However, I happen to believe that even the saintliest of individuals might find a swear word or two escaping from their lips when they were taking fire. Hell, we should test that theory. Let's strap up Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Franklin Graham with M-16s to go defend Iraqi freedom and record every second of their encounters. I'm sure that the only words leaving their mouths would invoke G-d and Jesus and how wonderful the two figures are. Falwell would probably condemn the yellow Teletubby as a jihadist at the same time.

Pardon me in advance for saying this, but you people need to LIGHTEN THE FUCK UP! Go watch Sky Angel or something...