Saturday, September 21, 02002
I made it to Arizona. Flights were fine. Had a whole aisle to myself on the flght from Pittsburgh to Phoenix. It's not as hot as I thought it would be. There are also trees here, which I wasn't expecting. Have to go visit now.
Update 1: Didn't get much sleep last night. I'm staying at a Candlewood Suites place my parents swear by, and it's nice, but the constant air conditioning was really loud, and the in-room fridge would kick in a well, so it was pretty loud, plus there was the whole time zone thing.
Visited my brother's school. Got a picture of an electric bus on campus, plus lots of cacti. Got some strange looks for that. Heard all about the recent ASU fratboy hoopla. Even got a picture of the building involved. Weird triangular windows.
It just keeps getting hotter and hotter as the day goes on. I think I'm getting a cold as well from the huge temperature differences between inside and out.
Went to a church in Goodyear to here my brother play the piano/organ. He embarrassed me by pointing me out to the entire congregation at the end of mass. Ughh.
The moon was huge on the drive back. Tip for others. Do not try to take the picture of the moon when driving 60 mph on the highway. Especially remember to turn on the flash. It may distract the driver, and all you get is a reflection of the windshield.
Update 2: Parent's are here now. Dispite tales of woe, both look well. Even saw the toes. They do not look so bad, nor is the cast so imposing. I on the other hand, now have a pretty bad cold. Pretty low energy, plus lots of drainage. I'm doped up on Sudafed.
Posted at 12:29 AM EST [Link][Comment]
Friday, September 20, 02002
Off to get a haircut and then fly out to Arizona to visit my little brother, who definitely needs to beef up his web presence a bit.
My parents will be showing up about halfway through the visit. My mom recently broke her thumb on the job as a drive up window bank teller, and my dad, modern primitive that he is, had four of his toenails permanently removed last week. Geeeeeee-ross. So neither of them is probably going to be very mobile, which should keep things interesting.
Posted at 10:49 AM EST [Link][Comment]
More evidence of Honda's crappy Internet marketing. I've changed the poor guy's name to protect the guilty.
Wow, HONDA MARKETEER, I bought an Insight from Bill Page Honda at the end of July. I made the request at Honda.com probably at the end of May, so that's a four month turn around time. I stopped expecting a response after two days. You guys must be using Carrier Pigeon IP, with the poor little birds having to fly all the way to Japan and back. This is the second time Honda marketing has contacted me after I've already made the purchase. I have almost 3000 miles on it now, and I've been real happy so far. I've getting 54 mpg on my daily commute, and the lifetime average mpg is up to 51.4 now. I even gave Brown Arlington Honda some free advertising a while back !
HONDA MARKETEER wrote:Hi JUDE NAGURNEY,
Thank you for your interest in the HONDA INSIGHT - IN02. My name is HONDA MARKETEER and I am the Internet Manager here at Brown's Arlington Honda. I have reviewed your request submitted through Honda.com and I am committed to making your car buying experience pleasurable and hassle free. I will be contacting you shortly to confirm specifications and equipment on the HONDA INSIGHT - IN02. Once I receive comformation of your vehicle selection, I will be happy to discuss vehicle price and availability. It is important that I have the correct model and trim level so that I can quote an accurate Internet price for you. Together we will set up an appointment so I can present your requested vehicle to you. In order to serve you most efficiently, I will be happy to do most of the necessary paperwork via e-mail,phone and/or fax prior to appointment.
I look forward to assisting you with your new car purchase. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me via telephone and/or e-mail.
HONDA MARKETEER
Internet Sales Manager
Brown's Arlington Honda
703-247-1148
www.ArlHonda.com
Posted at 10:04 AM EST [Link][Comment]
Thursday, September 19, 02002
I solar house I saw on the Mall a while back gets a big write-up in the Post today:
"We can raise our flags and put our hands over our hearts," says Carol, 43, serving up a chicken casserole from her energy-efficient convection oven, "but the best way we Americans can fight Saddam Hussein and the Middle Eastern leaders supporting terrorism is to eliminate our need for their major export." She turns to Tripp. "Which is oil," he chimes.
...
Next to car and mortgage payments, energy bills are one of the largest household expenses for most American families. The average annual energy bill for a detached house is $1,570, according to the DOE.
The Hathaways' house, by contrast, has an annual energy bill of $132, or $11 a month, for the connect fee.
Of course the Hathaway's also drive a hybrid. In this case, a Toyota Prius. Guess they couldn't fit the young ones in the trunk of the Insight.
Posted at 01:39 AM EST [Link][Comment]
I hardly every have recurring dreams, much less ones with a recuring plot line, but that's changed the past couple nights. H.C. Westermann has shown up and he's been showing me pieces from his new Death Planes series. First one was a mobile. Second was a pinatta. Let's just say both of them were, eh, disturbing. Stay away Horace ! Go show your shit somewhere else.
I probably don't have to worry about it tonight, because the good city of Arlington has decided to repave Fairfax Avenue, starting oh half an hour ago. I suspect they'll be at it all night. No sleep for me in the picture, much less any dreaming.
Posted at 01:02 AM EST [Link][Comment]
Wednesday, September 18, 02002
For all you football fans, Action-Medical.Net is sponsoring a street medic training in preparation of next week's festivities. I hadn't heard about this at all before just now. Oh well, I'll be off in Arizona for most of it anyway.
Posted at 08:54 AM EST [Link][Comment]
Tuesday, September 17, 02002
Some first aid tips for Redskins fans, and apparently, the players themselves...
If pepper gas had 300 pound football players vomitting on the sidelines, I wonder what it felt like for Baby Joughin.
Posted at 02:29 PM EST [Link][Comment]
Sunday, September 15, 02002
Some posters Micah Ian Wright need not tinker with:
Found indirectly off Social Design Notes, which is definitely sidebar-worthy.
Posted at 11:19 PM EST [Link][Comment]
Well the fast is over. Overall, it didn't work out so well. There was a code freeze date at work which meant eveyone was checking in masive amounts of code changes, so a lot of the time the compiles would just suddently start recompiling the entire world. So as I was waiting for compiles to finish I found myself surfing a bit. It was either that or watch the make chug along.
The TV part was a no-brainer since I don't have cable. However, when I gave blood on Wednesday, the site had a really loud giant projection TV showing the cermony highlights, which was exactly the sort of stuff I has trying to avoid all week. Sigh They strapped me in and started taking my blood and CNN started showing scenes of the crashes and collapses. It was like something out of A Clockwork Orange.
The no active copyright bit didn't work out too well either. I tried reading some classic literature I was supposed to have read back in high school. Hey if it's over 2000 years old it doesn't have a copyright, right ? Wrong. Unless your reading it in the original Greek, the translation's probably copyrighted. Oops. I suppose the same was true for all the classical music I was listening too all week as well.
Maybe I'll do better next year.
(I'm backing up the site today for the first time ever ! I've got around 7 megs (!!) worth of stuff up here now, and the lack of a backup's been bugging me for a while. What was keeping me from doing it was my zip drive has been on the fritz for at least a year, and every rainy day I'ld waste a few hours mucking around with Linux kernel configuration trying to get it working again. Finally I gave up, classified it a hardware issue, and went out and bought a USB model instead of a parallel port model. I figured this would cause me even more grief, so I put off installing it until another rainy day. Well that day was today, and it took all of 5 minutes to get it up and running ! That's probably because I went through all the USB support grief (including the upgrade to 2.4) when I installed the camera support a while back.
So what am I going to do with the rest of the rainy day now ?)
Posted at 12:58 PM EST [Link][Comment]
