Wed

Well that hurts.. I was working on the screening yesterday and I pulled out a muscle in my back by my ribs. It has me really messed up for a while. I was getting ready for work today and it just about killed me trying to get my shoes on. I gave up and called in sick. So now I am home and can't do anything. It is 8:30 a.m. and it is already buggin' me that I can't do anything today. I have one little section left to screen in and the porch will be enclosed.

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A few years back I told our kids that when they grow up part of their paychecks would go to pay for our neighbor's kid. Either through welfare programs or, more likely, paying to keep him in jail. The kid was part of the family across the street that was getting city funding to buy the house because they are such good people who just had a few bad breaks. Yea, the son was a 15 year old bike stealing-cigarette smoking-foul mouth-bastard that drove a car around the neighborhood with no license or license plates. The sister gained about 100 pounds and shaved her head to try to get toothless dad to stop molesting her. But other then that.. They were perfect citizens and deserved to get help buying a house. Anyhow, the son made the paper. He is going to prison for 10 to 30 years. Who knew?
As I was looking through some google links, I stumbled across a document. It seems that the dad was in court again. This time the Iowa Supreme Court. When he was convicted of mollesting his 15 year old daughter he was given parole and a suspended sentence. (WTF#1). When he violated that he had to live in a halfway house. During this time his "family" moved to Riverside. When he got out he moved in with them (WTF#2) , but they were too close to a school and he was told to move out. He did not and was arrested. He was on the news saying something like "once you are convicted of a sex crime, you are labeled for life". (WTF#3) So to the supreme court he went. Who paid for all of this? I don't know. But in his case they contended that " the residency restriction has a direct and substantial impact on his familial relationship. " (WTF#4) Reminds me of HER. You were raping your daughter and you are worried that having to move will have an impact on your family relationship. WHY is he even allowed to live there? WHY is the ICLU (the local and even more STUPID version of the ACLU) fighting for the rights of this piece of crap? Why are then not fighting for the rights of the daughter who has to live with him?

Apparently in Minnesota if you are on the SWAT team and you bust in the door of the wrong house and shots are exchanged, you get a metal. Good job, guys.

HERE is a pretty cool heat-sink. Normally I would not post this. But all of my tech sites are full of nothing but iPhone stuff and, as much as I like them, I am getting really tired of hearing about them.

Judge Judy felt the earth quake. Like I said... slow news day.

320BPM is pretty darn fast. If you watch this video, you can skip the first five min. or so and just watch the end. I guess this is pretty cool.

Friday

Gotta work late this weekend, so nothing will get done. But I will leave you with this: If you go drag racing, don't do it like this....

Thursday

First the news: This is pretty scary:

WARNING FROM THE MIDDLE EAST:
This morning, from a cave somewhere in Pakistan, Taliban Minister of
Migration, Mohammed Omar, warned the United States that if military action
against Iraq continues, Taliban authorities will cut off America's supply of
convenience store managers, and possible candidates for President of the
United States.
And if this action does not yield sufficient results, cab drivers will be
next, followed by Dell and AOL customer service technicians, and then Motel
6 managers.
*****
Ok, that was probably in poor taste. Sorry I found it funny.

This is not funny. Remember the Oklahoma senator that went on an anti-gay rant a while back? She got caught bringing a gun to the Capitol building. Again. ORIGINAL RANT HERE

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Time marches on: Remember the baby on the Nirvana Nevermind album? He is 17 now.

******

I got most of the screens hung. I only have to do the triangle where the stairs go up to the second level. I am thinking about putting plexiglass there to keep rain out, but also because it will be about impossible to put screen into the frame once I build it. I got the screen door on today also. The dog was forced to learn how to use the dog door and once he had no choice he figured it out right away. I figured he would since he figured out how to open the door that goes to the porch. We had a storm a few days ago and he opened the door and came in the house. DOH!

Monday, Monday

Here is a 30 second geography lesson brought to you by the best candidate that the Dem's could come up with. Seriously, guys. You deserve to friggin lose. Again.

Thursday

They are so cute when they are young.

Mary really likes Corner Gas. She called me in to see this part of an episode. If you have not seen the show, it is a strange and quirky Canadian show.

Wed.

I got the dog house installed! It took all day yesterday and part of today just to get in in, but it is done. I had a LED set from a landscaping light that was broken, so I took it apart and made a light fixture to go in the ceiling of the dog house. There is a piece of Plexi over it on the inside. It comes on at night and makes just enough light for the mutt.

You don't see a Camaro go over a million miles very often so check it out.

By now you should have seen the "history of dance" video on YouTube. It is one of the most viewed videos on the interwebs. Just in case you have not, here it is..

Well now comes the MechRC doing the robotic version of the same thing. Pretty funny at some points. If you work it right, you can sync both of them together and it is great.


HERE is a map of the US with the openings of Wal-marts plotted onto it which resembles the spread of a virus. Hmmmm

Ok, now leave me alone. I need to go finish the dog house so I can put up the last wall and then take some photos to show you.

Saturday

Wow. I can't believe it has been a week since I posted. I don't think I have ever gone that long. I have just been working on the deck. One more wall to complete and then I can start the screen in. But first I have to make the dog house that will be built into the last wall. I had to work today and then I came home and started on the dog house. It is a shame because it is SO nice outside and I should be there.
I saw this Tee-shirt today and thought it was cool. How many cars can you name?

Saturday

Big Tim came down today. His son is playing bass now and I am selling off some of the stuff that I don't need, so that worked out well. We went out to a Mexican place here in town. That was nice. Then I started on the dog door on the side of the patio. That took about 3 hours by the time I got it to work for what I am doing.


This guy makes ME feel smart :-)


Mary and the kids are out of town visiting relatives, but I had to stay here and work Friday. It was really cool when I got off work and I had the whole house to myself and I could do anything I wanted. Then about 10 minutes later the novelty wore off and I felt alone. There were fireworks going off all night and it reminded me that I should be with them watching them. They will be home tomorrow and I will be glad.

happy 4th

I got into a debate with another blogger the other day. He is a mac guy that has a mostly mac blog, but got side-tracked on hypermilling. He was giving tips on fuel effeciency and I questioned a few of his suggestions. My comments begin where I point out that NASCAR does not run slicks because it reduces aerodynamic drag, but rather becuase they don't drive in rain, or snow. (duh). He never addressed that part, but instead kept debating his claim that aftermarket air filters save gas. I was going to put one on my truck when I got it since I am going to keep that thing forever. I was going to do it to save gas. Then I started to think about it. They claim they increase HP, and they try to get you to associate that with saving gas. But the more I thought about it I realized this: They test engines on a dyno under full throttle where the engine needs to suck in tons of air and that added flow increases HP. But under normal conditions you can get plenty of air in and so MPG is not increased. I tried to explaine that to him, and he would not give. On the last comment I added (which he never posted) I told him that a K&N for my truck is $50. A fram is what? $5. I drive in the city. I am smart enough to know I can blow the dust out with my compressor and so I change it about every few years (or whatever) That would take me a hell of a long time to get my money back. But the best part was where I linked to K&N's site and quoted them. They said "K&N makes no general fuel economy claims, however we encourage you to try our air filter for yourself. " I told him that they spent a whole page going on and on about HP improvements and how they dyno proves it. With gas at $4/gallon, don't you think they would claim it helped if they could? Instead they say that there is no proof that it does anything, but you are welcome to give us a bunch of money and try it out.
Anyhow, I thought it was a fun debate, although i think it was cheezy of him to not post my last reply when he had no response.

Thursday

I have to work tomorrow covering the late shift. That kind of shoots the whole day down, but I will have the weekend off and should be able to get the last wall in on the deck. Here is a shot of the rails that I made around the planter boxes to keep the dog out of the flowers. I had planned to make them later, but the dog kept digging up the plants, so that got bumped up a bit.