Friday, January 26, 2007

Marginally Cleaned Up Desk


Since I recently wrote about my computer desk and the wiry mess below it, I thought it might be worth mentioning that I have done a little work to make it a little less of a mess. My wife gave me a new power strip for Christmas. It's one that has some space between the plugs and has the plugs aligned outward. This way all those little black power converter boxes can fit on it without covering up all the other plugs. So I replaced the old two power strips with one new one. I added two little micro-shelves that you can't see to on which to hang some of the wires. I another shelf below the server shelf so I could put in the VCR that feeds the TV box. I stacked the TV box on top of the computer using some little spacer feet. I added a shelf behind the monitor to hold the speakers (Oh, I think they're new also) and the wireless router so the desk is a bit less cluttered behind the monitor. I also added a little headphone-speaker switch (the little black box next to the computer) so that I can listen to the speakers and my daughter can listen to headphones without having to go behind the computer every time we switch computer users. The best thing is that one (usually my wife) can get to the little dust bunnies that used to grow under the wires with the vacuum.


OK, so it's a pretty pathetic life if this is all one can think of to talk about but I poured out my passion last night on the lottery.

Kíhtwám ka-wápamitináwáw   (goodbye to more than one in Cree)

Thursday, January 25, 2007

The North Carolina Lottery

About a year ago, North Carolina finally got a state lottery. This is supposedly for education. I hate state run lotteries. If there's something that will get me up on a soapbox fast, it's the lottery. The lottery is one of the lamest, unethical things a state can do. It's a tax on people who can't do math, people who ain't got nothing but dreams. Stupid People. It was always obvious to me and to any moron who manged to look, that a disproportionate amount of the lottery tickets were purchased by people who should have been spending the money on something else, like food and clothing for their children. So basically, the state sets up a mechanism to extract money from the very people that it will have to turn around and support in some other way based on their lower expendable income due to money spent on the stupid lottery. It's not only unethical, it's also inefficient. For all the money we get from them, we only get to keep about 30%. Half goes to the few people that win, and a bunch more goes to the corrupt organizations that run these lotteries. If we really want to screw these people, which is what we're doing, then why don't we just shoot them. It's only marginally less ethical and certainly more monetarily efficient.

For a long time, I was proud of being a North Carolinian. We didn't have no stinkin' lottery. We weren't mean and nasty like those arrogant jerks up North who like to look down on us. Lotteries are tacky and North Carolina was classy. OK, NC has it's problems, but in this instance, we were a model of class. Then all of a sudden all the stupid states in the south started feeling like they were missing out on something that all the other states were enjoying, "Screwing the Stupid People for Fun and Profit." About the only argument for a lottery in North Carolina that I can abide, is that now we get to screw over our own stupid people rather than let Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina do it for us.

The reason that I bring all this up is that the PowerBall lottery got up to $240 million and I got stupid and bought a lottery ticket. Here it is:



Last night they had a drawing and here are the numbers. Some stupid person in Missouri won.



I didn't match a single number. Now I really hate the damn lottery even more.

Görüsædæk (that's good-bye in Azerbaijani)

Saturday, January 20, 2007

DOG POO !

No matter how long you live or how well adjusted you are, you never get quite used to stepping in dog poo. It just takes the shine off your day.

Today I was walking around in the woods behind the house, looking at the dead trees aimed at the house. When I walked back to the house I noticed something on the side of my shoe. It had the consistency of muddy clay but unfortunately, it wasn't the right color and it had a subtle but pungent aroma. Damn! Dog Poo! I walked back out into the woods and found what was left of the offending excretion lying in the trail. I used a stick to slick it off to the side. Then I used many of the dead rotting stumps to scape the offending stuff off my shoes. I got most of it off but my wife suggested that I leave the soiled shoes outside.

Maybe I'll go walking in the mall tomorrow to loose up the remains and return my shoes to a state of OK.

May you always have clean shoes.

Good night.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

A Bit of Snow Today!


I got up this morning to go for my morning walk and, "Holy Cow!", there was snow on the ground and it was coming down like gangbusters. That was all the excuse I needed not to go for my walk.

Actually, there wasn't that much snow, only about an inch. But we haven't seen much snow around here since Global Warming really took off a few years ago. And it wasn't really coming down all that fast, but it was exciting just the same. It's been pretty warm around here lately and so the snow melted almost immediately on hitting the pavement. So I went to work as usual. School was canceled. There was a planned delayed opening and so I guess they decided to just "call it a day."

Anyhow, by about 8:30 AM the snow turned to sleet and then rain and by the afternoon, the snow was little more than a memory and we were left with only a cold rainy day. Yuk!

Well, enough for now.

Auf Wiedersehen!

Tuesday, January 16, 2007





American Idol

I just finished watching this years first episode of American Idol. It was a two hour special. I really like the season's early shows the best. That's when they (Randy, Paula and Simon) go around to various cities in the US and audition some of the worse "talent" that one can imagine. Where do they find those people? Unfortunately, its the most untalented and pathetic people that make for the best entertainment.

This week they were in Minneapolis. There are a lot of people out there in the heartland that can sing good enough to get through a shower without breaking any glass. But not a lot better. They are often surrounded by people who can't sing at all and are completely tone deaf. So these shower singers get the feeling that maybe they can sing good enough to go in front of millions of people and sing. Unfortunately, the tone deaf people only encourage them if only to make them feel good and because they don't know any better. It's all done with the best of intentions and with the most disastrous of results. It's like some illiterate reading my blog and then convincing me that I can write. But I know better.

Anyhow, I enjoyed it. It's on again tomorrow night. They'll be in Seattle. But I won't be able to watch. I'll be at choir practice. Maybe I'll record it using my little device that I mentioned in my last blog.

Time for bed. Au Revoir.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

What's on TV?

Some time ago I bought this little box that shoots TV onto my computer screen. It's called TVMax and it looks a lot like my little computer. You can record TV shows and do all the little things that one does with a DVR like TIVO. It can do a lot of other things, too. Actually, I bought it so that I could turn all of our old VCR tapes into electronic versions so that those precious moments wouldn't be loss when the tapes go to crap and I can no longer find a VCR to play them on.

Anyhow, I was sitting down to play on the computer tonight and was watching the tube over in the corner and I discovered that there was nothing on. Oh there were lots of things but few were really worth watching. Here's a sampler:

There was a Tom Hanks movie on channel 6.


Channel 16 was trying to sell something:


There was a football game on Channel 13:


CNN on Channel 29 was all over those lost boys in Missouri:


And there was a commercial for cheese on HGTV, Channel 76:



I liked this one the best. The black and white cows look real nice against the green grass and blue sky.

So that's what I was doing on a Saturday night, although it was Monday night before I got around to finishing this post.

Adios, Amigos!!

Monday, January 01, 2007


Christmas Letter

My wife recently wrote our Christmas letter. You know, that thing you insert into your Christmas card telling how much more exciting your life is than that of your friends. Well, I thought I'd post it, only it doesn't sound so exciting. I've decided that, as I get a little older, "exciting" ain't all it's cracked up to be. With minor edits to give anonymity to my family, here it is:

Greetings from North Carolina!

I've been procrastinating about writing this annual letter because we've had a very uneventful year - which is a blessing. This morning I asked Phil what were some of the big highlights of the year and the only thing he could come up with was: We got a new bird feeder!

Phil did change jobs this year from company A to company B (not much of a change, eh?). They are both small companies, but he's happier at his current place where his favorite former boss is now his boss again. He's still singing in the church choir and is about to start a term as elder.

I continue to volunteer at church and school. This year I kept my sewing machine humming making costumes for the school play (Hounds of Baskerville - I made a great Sherlock Holmes coat and hat!) and the youth choir musical (Seuessical - bird girls, fish, monkeys - you name it!) and am about to start all over again on the Wizard of Oz. I'm beginning to get bored and may have to find a new venture this year.

Son (or "alternative son" as he now calls himself) is now a happy sophomore at Earlham and pleasantly surprising his parents by doing better than they expected. He recently decided to do a double major - adding math to his economics degree. Unfortunately for us, that means he had to drop his plans to do a semester abroad in Vienna where we were already making plans to visit him. He sings in the Earlham chorale and has a steady girlfriend (from Seattle). He spent the entire Thanksgiving break in bed, and a week later ended up in the ER where he was diagnosed with mono. He managed to make it through exams and is now recovering at home (by sleeping days and staying up all night).

Daughter started high school this year and is loving it. She's in band (French horn) and especially likes her Japanese class. She continues to take tap dance, sing whenever she can, and always has a pencil in her hand for drawing. She cut off all her hair this year, so no more tangles!

We did not take any big trips this year. Daughter was sick most of spring break - our usual travel time, but we did manage to get in a short trip to the mountains. We had our annual July trip to the beach where we enjoyed the company of Phil's best friend from high school and his wife. We spent Thanksgiving at the beach for the 14th year in a row - always a great time for Scrabble, long walks and watching the dolphins play right off shore. We also had a beach weekend in October when we celebrated Uncle Frank's 80th birthday!

That's about all the news from our corner. We hope you and your family have a Christmas blessed with joy and peace.

And that's it.

Of course, I'll have to toss in a few pictures just to make it all worthwhile.