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.

My fifteen-year-old stereo is about to crap out on us. This means I'm in the market for a new one.

I want an all-in-one system, that plays MP3 CDs, and has decent sound. I do not need an iPod dock. I don't want one of the flashy bright orange ones with giant speakers like are sold at wal-mart.

Suggestions?

Idea is to stay under 200 bucks-- but I like a good stereo, too, so it's possible that a bit over that will be all right. (Best Buy isn't much help, I'm not in a big city, and Crutchfield goes from a 15-watt $100 system to a $3700 system with three in between. So I figured I'd see what y'all have to say...)

Many of you have good taste in electronics. Figured I'll tap your knowledge.

I'm trying to avoid messing with a component system just yet, since I figure I'll want a Really Good System^tm sometime in the not-too-far-off future, but for now I just wanna be able to play mix cds and get good radio reception.

(I know, this is a tall order on the budget I've given, and I've still got half a mind to just build a computer to run it all and put a good audio card in it, but I like dedicated equipment, and not having to mess with a monitor to run the stereo.)

'ppreciate it.

OK, so. Alaska is apparently about to have a volcanic eruption of "Mount redoubt", or something.

And in this story in the Houston Chronicle the writer mentions that there'll likely be ash and dust fromt he eruption.

Which is, technically perfectly normal for a volcano, right.

And then down in the comments, someone says...

Burned2times wrote:
Another sign from above we are heading toward Saddam and Gamera...
1/30/2009 6:25:02 AM

a couple comments down, someone says:

Adler wrote:
Burned, Gamera is a large, flying, sea turtle that lives in poorly dubbed, Japanese, monster movies.

Anything seem wrong with that?

Saddam and Gamera. Wow. it'd be just like if the end of the world was a GODZILLA: DESERT STORM video game... instead off fire and brimstone like in the bible.

This is a realy cool stop-motion music video for "Her Morning Elegance" by Oren LaVie.

(you wonder what it's gonna be like, as I did, and I bet you'll think it's really neat, like I just did. Down to the "aaa, fallin-- oh wait, no" thoughts.

Lemme know what you think.

I don't know how to embed youtube in LJ...

(oh yeah, and MTV still sucks for not playing videos at any sort of normal hour. pff.)
((and I know there's MTV2, and MTV3, but those aren't the same-- MTV3 is in Spanish, I think... Quite frankly, Palladium is my new favorite music channel, 'cept it's full concerts, and thus not always people I necessarily want to hear right then...))

work's been kicking ass. I got the microscope camera to work, today, mostly. Which isn't a big deal, except that coupling a microscope from 1975, and a camera from last month that runs off USB... not as easy as it sounds on a small budget. Anyway. I can take pictures of stuff that's 20 microns wide, now.

(That'd be approaching the "gnat's eyeball" range, I think...)

and I got another machine working today, so we can automate another process. This sounds lame, but since I'm gonna be running the powder-sorting-by-size machine, and _I_ don't wanna trickle in powder one ounce a minute for three hours at a stretch... I like this. plus, the machine makes little sand-dune-looking patterns in the powder as it travels down the feeder, due to the vibration. It really is kinda mesmerizing. Orrrr.... maybe I'm easily amused. Likely that I'm easily amused.

I digress.

anyway. It's almost Friday. Awesome.



Aaaaand... here's a picture of a 45-foot foam lion.

Apparently, according to this article it was a fixture to make a giant bronze lion. heh. Gotta love Vegas. That place is gonna confuse the crap out of archaeologists in 10,000 years.

Cepheids! does this remind you of Pat, at all?

So. If anyone ever walks up to you and asks,

"Hey, (insert your name here), is Rust-Oleum^tm Gray Primer #7582 flammable?"

You can say "Yes, because jspurlin told me so."

Because, yeah, it is. I just checked. This is actually part of my job function.

And every time I do one of these random little experiments, I always need some little random MacGyver part, and I don't have them. Like, this time it'd have been really useful to have some really thin wire. Which I have two different kinds of at the apartment. Which helps me NONE, here.

(cue "hmf" look here)

And it's always the days that I actually need a knife that I forget my pocketknife. what the crap. I need to buy some cheap ones to keep at work.

And this burnt primer residue smells like a cross between carbonized meat and burnt plastic, which is CONFUSING THE CRAP OUT OF MY NOSE.

yes, I brought the pan of residue back to my office. what?

Everyone doin' good?

Best possible ending to that. Badass.

It's always this time of night that I get this tingling in my feet-- the "OK, time to go do something" feeling. And I'm tired, and I don't necessarily feel awesome, but... see, the feet, they wanna go somewhere.

(may be that I have that "restless leg syndrome", to some degree. *shrug*)

And bed will be comfortable and warm, and I know this. I should just sack out here in a bit.

Since I had a project at work today (cut things in half with a coping saw, soak the halves in chemical stuff, cure those and see how far the chemicals penetrated the material) I went to Harbor Freight Tools today. And I got my 4-dollar-hey-it's-cheap-and-the-blades-are-included coping saw. And as I'm checking out, I see a watch case wrench. Looks like this:



If you look at the back of some watches, there are visible screw heads. These are usually digital watches. Lots of analog watches (except Rolexes, and if you EVEN CONSIDER opening your own Rolex, you're either a SERIOUS watch person, or a moron, depending on experience level) have screw-off casebacks-- where the edge of the caseback is threaded, and the whole thing screws off as a unit, exposing the innards of the watch.

All I wanted to do was replace some batteries in several watches that I own. I have always been meaning to get one of these wrenches, and today was the day. I'm pretty pleased-- my titanium Fossil is ticking happily away on my wrist, and the lookalike Army Field Watch is ticking away on the desk.

If you get one, DON'T USE IT ON A GOOD WATCH unless you seriously know what you're doing.

I've replaced these batteries with the full understanding that these watches were destined for the trashcan if I can't make them run, so if I kill 'em, no biggie.

To give you an idea on the markup on watch related stuff-- this is the same exact wrench I bought. List price in the store was either 8.99 or 7.29, depending on which sign you saw. I made a mental note to argue for the 7.29 price, and then it rang up as 3.00. Holy crap.

So. Productive evening.

for some reason, I dreamt I was speaking in German last night.

what the hey.

The size comparison is accurate, but if ever there were two things that aren't analogues for each other, "a piece of chewing gum" and "a microscope slide" aren't those.

There've been a ridiculous number of people deleting journals lately... is there something making people mad lately? Did I miss something?

www.anesthesiology.org/pt/re/anes/abstract.00000542-200804000-00018.htm;jsessionid=JCDJ4x3MnXp137q5fl9LGtmVKRYXKvpK2Bbt6M0XY4YCWhlNTnnf!-26702612!181195628!8091!-1

if that link doesn't work, search google for 'h2s "suspended animation" '. Several articles come up. But- and I still don't think I'm wrong- breathing hydrogen sulfide gas at 80ppm for six hours- jeesh, what a ton of dead brain cells. You'd be, like, the dumbest interstellar traveler ever. Still only tested on mice, and,well... They got wee lil' mouse brains. Not much higher level thinking there.

More tomorrow when I don't have to use my phone to type. Ouch.

EDIT OK, so the CDC says here that Hydrogen Sulfide (H₂S) ILDH (Immediately Dangerous to Life/Health) level is 100ppm. And apparently the body can endure 170-300ppm with little apparent damage.

But. Until someone DOES IT-- like, they ship a dude around the earth in orbit for five years and he's cool when he gets back-- I'll be damned if they're gonna expose me to H₂S on purpose. That was specifically one of the things I disliked about working in chemical plants -- POISON FREAKING GASES.

Anyway. maybe it's not scientifically entirely moronic. But... maybe it is...