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...