No fate but the fate you make for yourself.
Or, why I don’t blow off the older guys at the pub when they ask, “How’s it going?” - they may have something interesting to say, or be someone interesting that I’ve not met.
Such as Dicky Betts of the Allman Brothers Band.
OK, the rogue piece of script has been located and removed, WP has been upgraded and now it is a matter of getting all the little add-ons working with the newer version of WordPress. Hopefully Google/StopBadWare will take this site off their “OMG, it will kill you!!!” list in short order.
I seem to have lost all my categories in the process of upgrading? At least in the write post page.
Tonight, we broke the rules. “We” being myself and Moxley.
In season, dogs aren’t allowed on the beach in Southern Shores. (One neighborhood north, they are allowed year round.) I understand why - in any given population, there is X% that don’t clean up after their critters. In the offseason, in real numbers, that percentage is tolerable. During the season, it’s not tolerable as far as this neighborhood is concerned.
Well, when we got back from dinner this evening and I took the pup out for his evening sojourn, we headed for the dune deck to just take a look at the surf in the near full moon. Mox was having none of this “watching” stuff and headed down the steps to the beach. I gave a wide sweep with the maglite to see if we had company. Well, we were alone and I had all the necessary accouterments should cleanup be necessary, so off we went.
I know, I know - we shouldn’t have, especially since the local gendarmes here already have my name on file. But Mox doesn’t know the difference between on and off season and when he’s here off season, he is perfectly behaved on the beach and tonight was no different. We chased a bunch of ghost crabs and had a lovely walk under the moon and left nothing but doggie footprints. (Which seem to be around every morning on the beach. so I’m fairly certain we’re not the only miscreants about.)
Have to say, he’s a pretty good tracker. He’d get a scent of a nearby crab and would go nose down into the sand and well, if you didn’t know he was following the track of a crab, you’d think he was drunk for all the weaving and figure 8’s as he followed the scent until he caught up with the crab, which of course would immediately head for the water. Undaunted, he’d just start looking for the next one.
He’s a pretty good beach dog for being bred for the wilds of Tibet.
When the wildlife comes up and poses for you.
I was down on the beach, on my stomach & propped up on my elbows reading a book and minding my own business when something went skittering under my chest. I sit up and find myself face to face with the biggest, boldest sand/ghost crab I have ever seen. And he was rather insulted that I had abruptly taken away his shade. He spent some time on the towel, then under my chair, then back up around to my book again as if to say, “Whatcha reading?”
Couple more pics: Read the rest of this entry »
Best Cat Ever. Couldn’t have asked for a better 15 years from my furry friend.
Anyone out there know what a reasonable lifespan for a very heavily used laptop would be?
Mine is 3 years old and starting to overheat again on occasion, and I’m trying to figure out if this is the beginning of the end or if taking it to the shop would make sense. (Even if it is a huge pain in the ass and I’m not sure I want to shell out a lot of money on repairs if it’s just going to be a band-aid fix.)
At the moment, all words fail me, but I’m sure I’ll have several FCC banned things to say tomorrow on the subject.
Haven’t been there in forever, I swear it’s smaller than it used to be, but still fun.
Big disappointment - the vendor that used to sell gator was not there. :( But, all your other standard street fair foods, except I didn’t see any funnel cakes anywhere. Could have just not been looking in the right place.
I love how you’re welcomed with this cheery sight:
Once inside, I had to get my pirate tattoo. The ink didn’t last too well in the heat, but here is the design:
Stop looking at me like that - I ASKED if they were only for the kids! It’s not like I got one of the balloon swords.
More pics… Read the rest of this entry »
NBC news just cut into programming to annouce that Tim Russert died this afternoon.
One of the few broadcast journalists I really liked.
Seriously, click it - it is TOO ADORABLE!!
I’ve had the interesting opportunity to observe some court sessions (and happily NOT participate) under multiple judges lately. I think I’ve figured out how the system sort of works, at least in some cases.
First, get a lawyer. Make sure it is just a plain old good lawyer and not a grandstanding twit. (Elaboration later.) If you’re lucky, the judge will kick you up to room 201 to get a lawyer if you don’t have one already, and if you’re not lucky, they’ll let you hang yourself with your own rope. Not good. Said lawyer will also assist in trying to get a judge that doesn’t want the death penalty for everything.
Second, when you have a court date, look decent. At least thrown on a clean dress shirt and a pair of khakis. (Seriously, I have been amazed at the number of folks that show up in jeans/shorts/t-shirts to court.) And take off your damn hat - there is at least one baliff who will happily remove it for you, along with your head.
Depending on your judge and the severity of the offense, first offenses will get you a suspended sentence, fines and probation.
It’s the probation violations that can get you in real trouble down the line.
If it’s a compliance issue, ie, “Do x & y in the next 6/9/12 months” and you’ve not finished yet, it seems that you have 2 tries to get your probation extended and get it done. Come back a third time and it’s not done, you’re out of luck.
If you’ve been convicted of something else and that results in a probation violation, well, you’re just screwed and you’ll be a guest of the county for a while.
If you expect that your probation officer is actually on top of things, think again. If your probation is up in January and they say, “Yes, you’re good to go, just pay the final admin fee,” don’t count on it, because you could be served with a notice of violation anywhere from 3 1/2 months to a year later (I saw that whole range) once they get caught up on their paperwork. Also, don’t expect the probation officer to say the same thing in front of the judge as they do to your lawyer 10 minutes before court convenes. The case that they are just as happy to have put to bed as long as everyone behaves suddenly becomes something they want to “make a point with” in front of the judge.
If your lawyer is a grandstanding twit, you may also suffer, given that the judge can’t really do anything to the lawyer, but they can do things to you. Like make you serve 60 days on a probation violation (traffic violation) because your lawyer had you drag your daughter into court so he could show off your single parenthood. (The baliff actually walked over to the other adult looking after the child after it was over and said, “Don’t bring her back here again.”)
I plan to never need this information, but it has been interesting.
BIG storm went through here this afternoon - little bro just tried to go out and run a couple errands and it would seem that we’re the only neighborhood that still has power. Tree down over on Burke Road, rendering it closed until someone can get over there with a chain saw. Lots of traffic lights out, and the local shopping centers are apparently dead in the water.
Tornado was spotted over in Falls Church abot 6 miles from here. Last time I saw straightline winds like today was in a typhoon - I really thought we were going to lose at least one of the trees in the backyard the way they were bending.
Did a quick walkabout on the street - no major damage here, just little tree branches, lots of leaves, and the storm sewers are working overtime. I’m sure there will be a few flooded basements.
Yes, it’s time to really get in gear about moving elsewhere.
It’s quite one thing to have an increased and visible police presence in neighborhoods that are having crime problems. It is quite another to be impeding the flow of travel of a supposedly free citizenry.
Don’t get me wrong - I’ve been in this area for over 20 years and yes, DC does have a crime problem and in some neighborhoods things have improved, and in others, it’s gotten worse. But just closing off areas isn’t the answer.
And yes, there are situations where controlled access to an area is appropriate. Aftermath of a tornado, hurricane, flood, building collapse or other disaster. But while the crime problem isn’t trivial, it isn’t the same.
Went to the cardboard boat races today. It’s been going on for years and this is the first time I’ve gotten over there. Should you ever decide to go there, a few observations…
– There is a PITA chokepoint getting in and parking because they do charge for parking for the event. I spent 20 minutes traversing an length of road that normally would take 1 minute… The parks department might want to think about throwing an extra body at parking $$ collection
– Bring a nice picnic lunch. Even though there are food vendors, they’re just not quite ready for prime time. Not very long lines, but slow as all get out.
– The spectators are kind of vicious. There is as much, if not more cheering for capsized boats as for the winners.
– The range of boats is pretty spectacular, from a bunch of cardboard boxes taped together with packing tape, to a space shuttle.
– It’s really worth the $4 parking charge and the bit of a wait - very fun and I’d do it again.
Scavenged cardboard: $0
Paint & Magic Markers: $15
Being able to say, “We did it ourselves!” AND winning your heat? Priceless.
Boat: Swordfish
I’m fairly certain the little one on the right was the one I heard later saying, “Dad! The boat tipped over and we fell out! Did you see it?! It was AWESOME!!”
More pics after the jump
11 pages
26 paragraphs
248 lines
3027 words
Total Editing Time: 358 minutes.
6 hours of actual writing time to knock out 3000 words. Not too bad. It’s still a bit of a piece of crap, but it’s done and hopefully the next paper I’ve got, I’ll figure out a better topic.
A feature I absolutely love in Microsoft Word. It’s nice to be able to see that I’ve managed to get over 85% of the paper written in a mere 5 hours. About 4 more paragraphs and then all I have left to do is make sure I’ve got the Works Cited done right and it’s finished.
Mainly I’m doing BS filler at this point. I’d feel bad about that, but it’s a long standing academic tradition.
Don’t think it would have mattered when I’d started the paper, I’d still be wrestling it to the ground at this point anyway cause it’s such a crap topic.
It’s still like pulling teeth to get words to paper, but the paper is coming along, if a bit slowly. I suspect I’ll get on more of a roll later this evening.
I’ve at least gotten a good chunk of it organized in my head - brief history of the two agencies, previous examples of joint efforts, previous examples of overlap or gaps, then justifications for combining the two, the end.
I am so glad this is the last big assignment.
Not that I ever really abandoned them, but it’s been a while since I was up until near 5AM. (2:30 is usually my max.) This resulted in my sleeping ridiculously late* today, which isn’t exactly going to help with getting to bed at a terribly reasonable hour this evening.
The upside is that I do my best and most prolific writing at night, and I just happen to have a few more pages of convincing BS to kick out, so that works out well. I can get back on a more normal schedule next week.
Figure I should be able to finish off the content of the paper tomorrow, and Friday I can polish and edit at my leisure.
*Let’s put it this way - Donald was up, and out and about and back before I woke up. Given that he’s even more of a night owl than I am, that’s saying something.
Cause it’s freaking late and it’s hard to see straight. Granted, I’m on a bit of a roll, but it won’t make any sense in the morning if I keep this up - even if at the current rate I could be finished by 8AM tomorrow.
I think I’d rather have the sleep. And I’ve got plenty of time.
I’ve been struggling with this paper from the get-go, just trying to come up with a topic to start with. (Which was way too broad, but I finally got it narrowed down after a while, but it just hasn’t given me much of a “spark”.)
Well, I’m coming up on the deadline, and frankly, it’s just time to go completely into BS mode. It’s not like I have to actually believe what I’m writing or particularly care, just be choerent and have the sources that support it.
This particular class has been really hard to get into. It’s not that the base subject is boring (History of US Intel) but I think it’s just the reading materials for this particular class aren’t that great.
Now that I’ve finally gotten my brain into “just churn it out” mode, I can’t help but think I’ll have it knocked out with time to spare and probably well over the required length. Basically, I just have to stop caring too much about it, which has what has tripped me up so far.
Tomorrow’s quickie horoscope - sounds good to me: Your mind is extremely sharp today, and you are eager to discover some new ideas.
Despite the barbecues and sales, I do genuinely beleive that the vast majority of Americans do understand the real reason for the long weekend.
Frankly, I’m not sure how you couldn’t understand - when every other day you turn on the news and there is another picture of a soldier in his dress uniform who has been killed in action, you know why we stop and remember the fallen. It may look like many are using the weekend as an escape, but when you’re near constantly reminded of the ultimate sacrifice made by so many, it starts to feel like every day is a Memorial day.
It might not always look like it, but people do take the time to remember.
So, I actually got up early enough AND thought about it and headed over to the Farmer’s Market in Burke. (Usually I think about it in the afternoon and they close up at noon, so…) It’s really pretty small and parking is a touch of a challenge, but a nice way to spend a half hour.
Just wandered around, only picked up some chive cheddar cheese from Fields of Grace farms. Fair amount of nice produce, but all I could do was look and think, “Oooh, it all looks good.” but couldn’t come up with any particular thing to make with any of it. (I am a horrible cook that way - I would fail on Iron Chef.) But, this next week I’ll have to ponder things that need fresh green onions, radishes, mixed greens, fresh dill (OMG it smelled SO good) or new potatoes.
Couple places had good prices on strawberries, too, but I need a whole quart of strawberries like I need a hole in the head.
But, the best was the discovery of two potential local meat suppliers! ** Smith Family Farms does Angus Beef, Grass-Fed Chicken & Free Range Pork. Cibola Farms also does Free Range Pork and Buffalo. More expensive than the market, but I’ll have to give them a whirl sometime - they may very well be that much better, and I’d rather support small local farmers over the grocery store any day of the week. I’m definitely interested in how the pork is over what I can get from the grocery store.
** This is a big deal cause I got word that the slaughterhouse/butcher I had gone to before is no longer doing their own slaughtering, but bringing in frozen items. Bummer.
Good Moms let you lick the beaters when they make cake.
Great Moms turn the mixer off first.
Happy Mother’s Day.
Small Earthquake Felt in DC and NoVA
I felt it - and couldn’t figure out what it was - first thing I did was look outside expecting a large truck to be going by.
So, locals, if you felt your house shake a bit, or heard the windows rattle and couldn’t figure out what it was, it was an earthquake.
Having been in larger earthquakes in Japan, this was definitely a little one - so little I certainly didn’t recognize it for what it was.
It was the pilot light on the hot water heater.
But, now I know where the pilot light is, and how to relight it.
(Yeah, you’d think I would have known where it was, but I didn’t.)