That, on the left, is a WEEEEEE-TINY frog. Our yard, apparently, is replete with these tiny little frogs. Aggie Ring on right is for scale. Yep.

I love full moons...

...because theater 8 nine!

Open Letter to whoever picks the music for all the Lincoln vehicle ads:

KEEP AT IT. Whoever picks that music knows exactly the music that I like...

The Cat Power one, singing "Space Oddity", would be AWESOME if it were a whole song, rather than just that clip.

Then there's another with "Coming Home"(originally Peter Schilling) by Shiny Toy Guns.

The newest one is "Under the Milky Way" sung by Nicole Atkins. Another good song...

So. Yeah. not going to buy a Lincoln, but I love their marketing department audio people.

It has amused me more than once to see that in this particular phonebook, MENTAL and MIDGET are the two headings... That _can't_ be entirely chance...

Is that not cute? He just passes out all cool like that...

I need one of these...

so... I'm in the study a minute ago, and on Facebook, posting about the asshole terrorist in Dalla-- wait, that's another story.
So Nicole's singing in the living room, and I hear "shoo fly..."
and the next thing I hear -- in my half-deaf left ear-- is
"Lobotomy".

(same cadence as "don' bother me", it was....I'm not a moron...honest)

It's actually really satisfying to put together something that functions as intended, when it's something that I'm doing for the first time...

I put a network together at work, see, and it's working as intended. In a whole freaking bunch of places. I WIN.

(now, granted, it's not elegant, but if they want elegant, they gotta pay someone who knows what the hell they're doing. I have some slight idea, but am by no means an expert.)

((and I'm still not cool with getting up on rafters and walking around. I could NOT be an insulation installer...))

---

The more I read about geocaching, the more I think it looks like a good excuse to go outside and go someplace with a purpose...

---

Y'all doing good?

so. I broke an AC unit at work, right. I'm all "it's cool, I can change the thermostat, how hard can that be", and I change it out.

It then completely refuses to work.

I get irritated, and revert to the original thermostat. (this omits the part where I cuss the thermostat and the wiring for being crappy, what with that being the probable issue.)

Still nothin'.

I go look at the AC unit, flip the onboard breakers to reset them, try other things. Nothin'.

I attempt to call the air handler manufacturer.

Their phone system repeatedly, for an hour, hangs up on me every time I try to transfer to someone who can help me.

Eventually, I get to someone in tech support, who goes "have you tried replacing the fuse?"

*blank look from me* (yes, over the phone. pff.)

So I turn off all the breakers and go find the fuse -- behind, naturally, a panel labeled "NO USER SERVICEABLE PARTS. CALL FOR SERVICE." or some other equally ominous warning.

It's a 3-amp regular automotive fuse. They're 3 dollars for a pack of five.

Lo and behold, I change the thermostat to the new one, and reinstall a new fuse, and we're good.

But I can see how some AC repair calls take three minutes, now.
I bet they still cost the same, but the effort is minimal. It took more time to reinstall the flimsy panel on the housing than to replace the fuse...

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/hightech-hearing-aid-the-ultimate-ipod-accessory-20090809-ee8p.html

Bone-actuated hearing aids.

We live in the freaking future.

And as someone who has pretty-damn-bad speech-interpretation-level hearing in one ear, I'm pretty excited to see where this goes.

My left ear sucks, in terms of the frequencies at which human speech is. High pitch? TOTALLY CAN HEAR IT. Low Pitch? sure, it's ok. middle frequencies? it's like hearing through mud.

So someday when this improves, maaaaaybe that's an option.

But I like that the tech is still being worked on.

This is a rack to hold our tupperware. But to me it looks like (with the exception of the hole in the top middle) Darth Vader's helmet.
No, really.

Very relaxed right now. Laying on the couch in our new house, just decompressing from a long day.

I'm currently VERY much enjoying the lack of other-people-around-us sounds. And being in _our_ house is awesome.

Everyone doing good?

So...flew back from Vegas tonight. Took off from DFW for Killeen just as all the fireworks were teeing off... And the pilot kept the plane at 4000 feet for 30-some miles, so we saw thousands of fireworks. Amazing, seriously. Won't happen often, since there's about a one-hour-a-year window to fly to be able to see it...
Anyway. If you can, do it. High point of the evening...

Those are chickens in a mural at the DFW Airport Popeye's Chicken, covering each other in tabasco. Genuinely creepy, when I first noticed it... At least the suicidal catfish in the same mural seemed dumbly happy, not manic...

Ok... Pretty cool. But I still don't buy that the slot machines are random...

Well...cross that off the drinking checklist

Ok, so... Caesar's is cool...

View out the window of our room...

off to Vegas for the first time... Staying in the Monte Carlo until the 4th. Give me a call or an email if youalre around; maybe we can work something out....

So I'm working on a computer that crapped out the other day, and I put the hard drive into another chassis we got at a police-seizure surplus auction, k? And today I'm working on drivers, and I see "TAE_BO" listed as the contents of the drive... And this was in it.

Odd...someone was watchin' Tae Bo when the cops bust in...

K... Something seriously wrong with a pig enjoying a big ol' bowl of pork rinds...

Only at Walmart; a Christmas tree in the back of a truck, the day before June....

So. There's a motorola batteryin the grass outside our apartment, a few minutes ago. I pick it up, if for no other reason than to throw it away. There was a cover sticker missing, and apparently a contact shorted somewhere, because it MELTED A SLICE IN MY FINGER.

wtf.

so. Science news for the day: phone batteries have enough juice to melt skin. Tadaaaa.

Everyone doing okay?

If you can't read all that...

Buy one, get one free, or 2.99 each.

*boggle*

what?

My great-uncle E.P. Spurlin died this morning. And even though I know he wasn't aware of things, and I know this is better for him, I'm still sitting here crying at my desk. I loved that man. My aunt Frances and uncle E.P. (great-aunt, great-uncle, I referred to them without the "great-" except to explain who they were, even though they were great people) took care of me when I was sick as a kid, we went over there all the time, and ...they were just... cool people.

I don't think there's been a week that has gone by, since moving to Belton (six, maybe seven miles from where I grew up, give or take), that someone hasn't gone "Spurlin? Like, _____ Spurlin?" (where the blank is, better'n half the time, "E.P.") And it's always a family member. He was a banker for... man, like fifty years.

I had a man cut my hair the other day that remembered being in the VFW with E.P. .

Stronger than anything, and worked hard when he used to be able to.

Alzheimer's disease sucks.

And listening to him tell stories about J. Frank Dobie stuff, and just... kinda ramble like some older guys do... that was pretty awesome, really. Lived in the same town all his life -- well, once they moved to town from the farm -- fifteen miles from Temple... Married a girl from down the road from where he grew up.

That's the kind of thing that I think more people should aspire to. Seriously.

Word of the day: triboluminescence.

Get a bandaid, those that come in the paper wrapper you peel open. Or a breath-right strip. DON'T OPEN IT YET. Go someplace really dark. Watch the wrapper as you open it.

See that glow? Triboluminescence. Look it up. Physics mystery, still...

</geekery> (oh, come on, you think it's kinda neat if you tried it...)

So. Wired a 2-line telephone extension today, at work. I think that's another geek cred/life skill point. most difficult part is determining what the hell was going on in the wiring panel. And the fact that there's about eight miles of unnecessary crap wired up in there...not helpful.

Eh. Made for a long day, but accomplishment's always a good thing.

Wall insulation and rafters are going up on the house... Woo!

So. The house, she is being framed. And now it feels huge inside... It felt smaller before the framing, since you have less frame of reference. EXCITED ABOUT THIS, yo.

It's weird to see a band on Jay Leno (Eli Young Band) that Nicole and I saw play in Gun Barrel City (no, really, that's the city name, honest)

It's Star Wars day!

(May the 4th be with you!)

so... I just rolled over 1000 friends on Facebook. I'm not sure if this is an indicator of JUST HOW MANY HOURS I have spent on facebook, or... yeah. I feel loved. Or at least, liked a great deal. Yeees.

(holy shit, my network is huge. My people are watching you right NOW.)
((wait, if you're reading this, you're part of the network. Heh. Keep a good eye out, y'all.))
((("Someday, and that day may never come, I'll call upon you to do a service for me." </godfather>)))

Yeah, seeing something listed in a catalog as being made out of "polycarbonite" makes me immediately think not of, say, Nalgene bottles, but that big block of stuff Han Solo was entrapped in.

I'm not sure if this makes me a crappy materials person, or a really good geek.

(I know, I know, he was just in "carbonite", whatever. don't go all Star-Wars nazi on me) The material's supposed to be polycarbon-A-te, too. eh.

Everyone doing ok?

so. I have a respirator for work. if "respirator" is too scary of a word, think "gung-ho dust mask", since this is only for "fine particulate matter", effectively. Since we work with powder (plastic, some metals, some amorphous silica, but mostly plastic), airborne dust is a necessary evil. Aaanyway.

So. you can put different filters on it for different hazards. The ones I have are basically just for "non-hazardous, annoying dust".

I'm scanning the warning label, and this is what I read:

only for particulate matter. if you become lightheaded, notice it is hard to breathe, or a delectable odor...

AT WHICH POINT I STOP. Because... seriously?

*facepalm*

Upon review...

detectable odor. Delectable? Was I hungry when I read that?

So. The other day we're driving by Nicole's school, right. And I see the Marquee sign out front, and it says, in big block letters:

MARIO PTA MEETING


(PTA is the parent-teacher association-- for parents of the kids at the schools to collaborate with the teachers.)

And my brain goes "Mario...PTA... what?"

March 1-0. Meeting was on March tenth. I lose.

Harbor Freight sells some weird things. Just sayin'. And the "added feature" totally makes it.

	Nicole the astronaut Yeah, they sell "Spaceship Earth" fuzzy astronaut helmets. Apparently I'm not invited, as I got a big head.
	*hngk* Dude. Spaceship Earth was rolling away. I had to hold it up.
	*hgnk*, round 2 ...AND THEN the legs on Spaceship Earth collapsed. Nicole had to hold it up 'til all the people got out.
	Spaceship Earth and surrounding area. See, ain't it neat?

So. We're in Daytona Beach, and the shuttle launched yesterday. The contrail was cool. Being able to see the boosters separate was cool-- realizing that they were headed to space as we saw it was really cool. We have a lot of better pictures, those will come later...

Yay, Disney world later in the week...

So, um... Service Mechandise and Montgomery Ward's still exist. As online retailers, at least.

These haven't been anywhere that I've seen them in... pff, at least 10 years. Weird.

So. This is a shame:
Man guilty of killing 'Harry Potter' actor

BUT.

this is an excerpt from the article, the whole italicized part. Bold print sections are things I want to highlight:

Prosecutor Brian Altman told the court that the young actor's promising life was ended by a "habitual knife carrier" who believed stabbing people was an "occupational hazard" and had previous convictions for knife crime.

Bishop is due to be sentenced on Thursday.

Knife crime in Britain is a political hot topic due to a spate of recent killings of mainly young people in major cities. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has urged tougher sentences for those caught carrying knives. He told the Daily Telegraph last month: "By carrying a knife you are not only endangering the lives of others, but you are more likely to be killed, or end up in jail.


so.

A... "habitual knife carrier"? what the hell? I'm a habitual knife carrier. There're at least fifteen other people on my friendslist, I'd bet, who are seldom without a knife. I carry a knife of some sort nearly constantly. Not at church, but damn near everywhere else. I invariably feel weird when I don't have a pocketknife on me-- due to needing it for some random task during the day.

You're not endangering the lives of others simply by carrying a knife. That's simply not true. A knife is a tool. If a psychopath kills someone, then that is the act of a psychopath who used a knife. The knife would just lay there on the pavement if it weren't for the wackjob wielding it.

The British authorities have strange attitudes towards knives. Damn near everyone I work with has at least one knife on them, at all times. I had two different ones in my pocket by accident most of the day, and a Leatherman nearby, with a bunch of pointy sharp blades, too.

And nobody died, and I'm safely at the house.

I've got no idea how to fix it, but banning all knives isn't the way. Pointy metal things are easy to fashion.

Suggestions on how to fix it? (everyone wears chainmail, again, perhaps?)

WHY is that "on christmas day in the moooorning" song, sung by Sting, in my head right now?

WHAT THE CRAP, BRAIN.

edit: the name of the song is "I saw three ships".

like, um:

I saw three ships come sailing in
on Christmas day, on Christmas day.
I saw three ships come sailing in
on Christmas day in the moooorning"

if this gets stuck in your head, well, then, um... welcome to the club. *grin*

So I'm at Subway buying lunch just now, right. And I got sandwiches for me, and two other people I work with. Naturally, today that makes me that asshole who's holding up the line, right.

there's this woman behind me in line who had, apparently, just arrived back in town from San Antonio, and had an accent. This is not unusual, there're lots of people, me included, with accents. I'm not exactly sure where she was from, either, but she made an effort to be understood by the subway-person, and apparently "turkey" came out semi-intelligibly, anyway.

But there's a delivery guy waiting in line, and he gets impatient and leaves, apparently. And she mentions this to me-- "the ups guy just got tired of waiting and left", she said.

But I've never heard of them being referred to as "the ups guy". U-P-S, yes. ups-- like the opposite of downs? nope, that's a new one.

---

Friday going good for everyone? I'm taking a crate apart, here in a minute. Wheee...

This Slate article: http://www.slate.com/id/2211994/
says a great deal of what I have long suspected. Terrorists, especially the ones who perpetrated 9/11, aren't/weren't smart, or good, even. They found a loophole and exploited it.

I heard something (somewhere, i don't remember where) that the jist of it was "to prevent a terrorist attack, the target has to be lucky/prepared EVERY TIME. The terrorist just has to be lucky once."

And that's what they count on.

But the thing is, that article mentions that from an Islamic point of view, 9/11 has caused more Islamic deaths than EVER. I mean, man, if you're gonna kick an anthill, don't kick the one with the armor-plated ants that are taller than you. Or the ones that, whether it is sensible or not, will bring the fight to you, rather than let you stay on their turf.

And the article goes on to say that the terrorists aren't as organized, brilliant, and awe-inspiring as they'd hope to have you believe.

All along, I've figured that the 9/11 terrorists were one group of morons who happened to be very, very fortunate-in-terms-of-the-goal-of-their-plan, at one singular point in time. And just about everyone on the planet likely wishes that those guys had failed. I'd figure everyone but Al Qaeda wishes that they'd failed.

when I manage to determine that a ballpoint pen barrel (the main plastic housing) is the same size and approximate length as a machine part I was gonna build in the laser sintering machine, thus saving a decent amount of time and effort, it occurs to me:

I become a little more like MacGyver every day.

(but don't we all?)

so. Geek cred increase today. made an ethernet cable. wheee.

(not that I haven't known how, but up to now I've always had enough laying around that I've accumulated. We're putting in a network at work (hah alliteration/assonance/a-word-repeated) and so I wanna know how to terminate both ends of cabling.)

honestly, being able to make my own crossover cables excites (yeah, my first impulse was to write "excites", there. shoot me.) me far more than "whee, I can make ethernet cables", since we have lab equipment that needs crossover cables, too, and so that's good.

(wo, i could just embed a crossover in the wall and do it that way... Is it bad when you make singular-purpose cable runs?)

yeah.

Anyway. how're y'all?

Yeah, so it was on sale, and Nicole bought it. And it makes me remember 4th grade. No kidding.

And some of you young'uns don't know this music. And I'm not gonna say that newer boy bands are any better, either. Yeah.

So. I'm sitting in my office, and for the last couple of hours, there's been this 3/4" or 1" diameter spider randomly crawling around on my window. And I understand that overall, spiders perform a valuable biological service, eating bugs and all, but any spider you can hit successfully with a tennis racket is too damn large. Anyway.

Right now, the sun is low enough now that I have a spot where the sun is shining on the wall. My peripheral vision notices this blurry shadow moving in the sun on the wall-- and I look up to see the spider still on the window, but hauling ass in one direction. And just in front of the spider, there's a moth, flapping for all his might, right against the glass.

And the spider is HASSLING THE SHIT out of this moth. Chasing it around the window, and all. On-the-offensive-spider is offensive.

And then the spider gets a bit too close to the moth, who is still flying as HARD AS HE CAN. And the moth's wing grazes the spider, and it falls off the window, and the moth flies away.

I am amused.

wow... nothing says "we've fallen a long way" like Blue Oyster Cult playing the "Bloomin' Temple"(because Temple's the Wilflower capitol of Texas) Festival, in Temple, TX.

...aaaand other than "Don't Fear the Reaper"...what do they sing? oh yeah -- "Astronomy", I think. and the only reason I know that is "Garage, Inc" by Metallica...which isn't necessarily a good reason.

hmm.

Blue October concert in Austin in April, maaaaybe. Have to see what's happening then.

AND HOLY CRAP, RODNEY CARRINGTON IN COLLEGE STATION, MAY 1ST. I think I might, just for good measure, have to go see that one. (yes, I had to yell, right there.)

I have a whole bunch of really awesome friends. Just sayin'.


So I had a really awesome birthday dinner last night with jnspies, my parents, my grandma, and my uncle (who was unexpectedly in town to see my great-uncle, who is not doing well at all, but is 84 and hasn't done well in years). We had, since-Nicole-asked-me-what-I-wanted-and-this-is-what-I-said, fish sticks and Kraft Deluxe Macaroni and Cheese.

And it was awesome. Yep.

And this morning, I was listening to Chris LeDoux and wearing my new boots (which look like that, except the leather is bison leather, and looks more...weathered), and it just occurs to me that this has been a damn good week. Listening to Chris LeDoux reminds me of the concert I went to in 2004, and I'm still glad I got to see the man perform when I did.

I have plenty of birthday money to buy a pretty serious stereo now, instead of the lil'-dinky-shelf-system that would have been kind of a disappointment, so...

I say "pretty serious", but I'm not talking "audiophile level", or McIntosh level (Though McIntosh sells some really cool looking stuff, granted). edited to add: and holy crap, they sell car audio systems. That's not something i would expect. The McIntosh stuff, from the idea I can get, could easily be ten grand for a home stereo. It'd likely be pretty awesome, but I'm not going to spend that kind of money... for the foreseeable future, at least.

Got no idea what to get, but we'll go look and pick out something cool...


Everyone having a good Friday?

if anyone will get this, faith47 and xerophreak will, and maybe a couple others of you...

So. i'm doing calculations at work (density on some tiny little parts, whee) and I come up with .5591 as an answer.

And immediately think of Justin Furstenfeld's "alter ego", or whatever you'd call it.

(for explanation, read this concert summary.)

The geekery, it abounds.

Everyone doing good today? I've been having a pretty good day, and didn't catch hell from boss-person visiting today like I thought I might, earlier. Whoop.