Generalities: August 2004 Archives

I killed a deer last night with the mini-van. It did no damage to the van, but the deer was totaled. It seemed like a very small deer, likely a fawn from this spring, although I didn't see any spots. It was still twitching when I got out of the van to check things out. I hate to see any animal suffer, but couldn't humanely do much about it with the tools at hand. It was huge suprise to me when the deer essentially decided to run headlong into my passenger side bumper.

Usually when i have a very stressful day a little bit of raw fish will calm me right down.

IT"S NOT WORKING!!!!

Can anyone explain why I would buy an HP iPod? It has the same specs and the same price as the Apple one, as far as I can tell. At least when Sony created a Palm it was different. It had a different price, different shape and a different configuration. This is HP innovation? I can't make heads or tails of this HP product. At least it doesn't use ink that costs hundreds of dollars a gallon. It's not even as innovative as a clone. I can't even tell from the pictures if it's been re-badged in a meaningful way. I don't get it.

I just got back from lake Vermillion. Here are a few thoughts.

Speaking of Faith, is truly an amazing radio show. I find that there are very few truly intelligent shows in any broadcast medium that explore faith issues in interesting thoughtful ways. This week's show was about South Africa's "Truth and Reconciliation" process and was fascinating. It's available online if you go to their web page. It will be interesting to see where South Africa goes politically and economically, and to evaluate the effect of the "Truth and Reconciliation" work in another ten or twenty years. SA is a far cry from the country I reported on in the sixth grade.

I have been using gmail now for a week or so. I don't get what all the fuss is about. It's very good web mail, but I can't really see what all the fuss is about at this point. (I still have invites, if anyone wants one, BTW.) Perhaps people are just excited about the disk space available. It makes most IT departments seem a little stingy.

This Michael Moore ala Che t-shirt is one of the wittiest t-shirts I have seen in a long time.

The kids love being at the lake. They love being outside and fishing (better know as tangling), or running around catching bugs. Its fun, but sometimes I long for the days when going to the lake meant catching up on reading and sleeping. The kids have very different ideas about what the phrase "fun at the Lake" means. At least they aren't eating things off the carpet anymore.

I didn't see much wildlife up north. I saw some woodpeckers and a turtle from a distance as well as the usual loons. There were a few suspicious noises inside the cabin, which I attribute to mice. I found that someone had left a large sack of sunflower seeds in the cabin, which must have been feeding quite a large family of mice. Hopefully, removing some of their food supply will drive the vermin to the many traps we have been setting out.

Cool election year quiz, CSM Quiz.

After completing the quiz it appears I should probably vote for Badnarik, but I probably won't.

Also of note election wise is factcheck.org, which tries to debunk (or rebunk) campaign ads. It seems reasonably bi-partisan. It would be interesting to keep score and see which candidate sticks to the facts the most.

278 - 233

I saw a seeing eye dog today. It had a sign with the following text on it.

My wife should get a sign like that for me.

So now I have gmail invites. If you want one drop me a line or leave a comment (no spam please). First five people get one.

Of course, I don't expect anyone needs one at this point, as I seem to be the last person to get a gmail account anyway.

As one co-worker noted "You are so, two months ago."

Someone finally deigned to send me a gmail invite. I was starting to wonder how socially inept I must be in order to rank so low, even on the digerati dork pecking order.

At least I didn't have to beg.

I've never been one to use free web based email, having had my own server for a long time. I'll be curious to see if I like it, and whether it becomes a spam trap.

To the man in the McDonalds playland who was screaming at me when my child allegedly pushed his child.

1. I am glad to discipline and watch my own children. I am also glad you brought the incident, which I couldn't see from my vantage point, to my attention.
2. You need to step back at least a good foot and stop the screaming. I don't tolerate my children pushing, biting, or yelling at other kids. I expect immature behaviour from the two year olds, but not the adults.
3. If you think I am not paying sufficient attention to my own children, give me a chance to rectify matters before you start screaming.If you hadn't been so belligerent to me, your children would have received an apology from mine, and they could have experienced seeing them given swift and severe consequences.
4. Kids playing rough on a playground or playland is no reason to be a beligerent ass. The playland is a bit of a free for all, where the parents are slighlty disconnected from the children by the deisgn of the tubes. All parents seem to struggle with occasional roughhousing. The kids are just learning manners. Maybe you should consider learning some yourself.
5. Be sure to talk to the right parents instead of walking around belittling each parent in turn hoping to find the right parent.

Until we meet again, Cheney Off!

Check out opensecrets and see where each candidate is geting their money. Lot's of really good aggregate data here.

Reminds me of fundrace which lets you snoop on your neighbors political donations.

Had a little art show today at work. This was the result of the art day last Sunday. The response to the three pieces (I am only responsible for the one you see above) was more positive than I might have guessed. I can't wait to frame this puppy and hang it somewhere at home. It's 4' X 6', so there may be some negotiation involved in this transaction.

It's more impressive in person, so I hope that no one is viewing it on the web in lieu of seeing it in person. You know who you are.

A hearty congratulations to Jennie, who has delivered a beautiful baby boy.

The first few weeks of parenthood are so burned into my brain. It's not like I remember anyone particular event but the foggy miasma of no sleep, but extraordinary joy seem so vivid to me. What an experience!

Best of luck Jennie.

Here is a list of things I want to do in no special order. I would like to do these in the next few years.

• Get more miles of the SHTA under my belt.
• Do a hike greater than 40 miles.
• Finish as least one room in my basement.
• Go around Cape Horn in a sail boat.
• Learn another programming language to the point where I can write idiomatic (but maintainable code).
• Find a way to get back into auto racing.
• Convert my old laptop into a networked picture frame.
• Go to India for a visit.
• Write something that is published. By published I mean something more than ftp'ed up on the 'net.
• Go camping with my kids.
• Catch a really big fish on Lake Vermillion.
• Fix my awning.
• Replace TIVO with a linux based PVR.
• Lose a few pounds.
• Be a little nicer, but not too much.
• Go for an extended vacation in Italy or France or someplace interesting.
• Take some really stunning photos.
• Matt and frame some art, including the stunning photos from above.
• Figure out how to keep the pond vegetation from encroaching on my lawn without dousing everything with chemicals.
• Build something in the back yard with stone.
• Go back to Yosemite.

There are other accomplishments relating more to family and internal goals, but there is no need to go into that here. I should have at least some inner life not lived out on the web.

Summer in Minnesota can be magnificent. Perhaps it's the paucity of really nice weather that makes us appreciate the really wonderful days. Whatever the reason, I would hardly trade a gorgeous day in Minnesota for anything.

Here's a picture taken a few weeks ago near a dock on Lake Vermillion.

Cryptome has almost always been one of the most interesting sites to see things that governments don't want seen. Always good stuff.

This is perhaps one of the funniest things I have seen on the internet for a very long time. In fact this one item has renewed my faith in the medium. http://www.qsleeper.com/ [Link courtesy of boingboing^2]

Apparently, this bed is for the very paranoid among us. If you haven't yet clicked on the link, imagine the concept of a safe room, applied to a bed (which resembles a very large coffin.) This isn't a complete list of features, but just some of the highlights.

• Bio-Chemical Filtered Ventilation
• Rebreather
• Air/Water Tight Sealing
• optional cd player

So I guess to get a "safe" night's sleep you just hit the "Close" button on your bed remote and wait for the lid to clunk to a halt just above your head. Then you can snuggle up with your honey, let the tunes play, and ignore the looting going on in your house.

for the low-budget paranoid, I am thinking about creating a "safe sack."

I took a ride on the light rail today. It was a very nice experience. I made a roundtrip from Cedar/Riverside behind Riverside Plaza. The cars were fast, clean, and good looking. The system, while limited in scope, is pretty user friendly. Although, I had cash with me, it was nice that I could have used a credit/debit card if needed. I am looking forwad to the day when this line goes more places, especially the Mall and the Airport. Although I am a fairly conservative on most issues, mass transit makes a lot of sense to me, although I can't make sense of some of the numbers thrown around by the special interest groups (both for and against). I still don't really understand why they chose this route for light rail, why there aren't more elevated street crossings and why it's so hard to go from suburb to suburb on a bus.

The kids got a little squirrelly at the end. I think they were showing off for Grandma and Grandpa who also made the trip with me. The trip back was packed with riders going to the dome.

In the end it's too bad that I have to go downtown to get anywhere on a bus from my house. Maybe I should have thought more about this before I bought my house.

Something about the tone of this web site makes me think they are after regime change in the U.S. it still has a pretty interesting analysis of the electoral college breakdown based on polling. electoral-vote.com. They even have an RSS feed, so you can get regular updates.

"It may well be true that, as a number of pundits have claimed, Kerry gave the best ... speech of his career last night [at the DNC convention]. But that's a little like saying Yoko Ono's latest CD is her best-ever...", courtesty of reason.com.

Some people have a gift for punditry and twist of phrase.

On Saturday I skipped the canoeing and headed to IKEA with my sister-in-law. Frankly I was in awe of the store. It was so huge and filled with really interesting ideas. I didn't end up buying anything, as I didn't go there with all the relevant measurements, but I am sure that the Sandnes shoe cabinet is in my future. The crowds were a bit unreal. It felt more like the Minnesota State Fair than a retailer.

After IKEA, I hit the baseball game which was more fun than usual.

Sunday was a day for a quiet brunch, afternoon nap followed by a screening of The Notebook. My wife had already seen it twice, and was completely taken by the movie. I thought it was a very sweet romantic movie. Anyone who has really been in love, or wishes they were in love, and likes the idea of love lasting for a lifetime should see this movie. I haven't read the book, so I can't tell you what I thought on the book versus movie issue. Really it was a very nice movie.