Month: February 2008

So I’m at the Live Blogging Thingy 2008. Entertaining, sad, funny, gross, and every so often poignant. once I am back at a computer rather than typing on a freaking phone, I will link to FiddleyGomme’s blog for the event.

Pete Dunn’s comments @ : http://twitter.com/FiddleyGomme (note: you may need to go back in the history if you’re viewing this after 2007-02-17).

A few photos (though the lighting is weird and they are kinda’ fuzzy): http://fiddley.com/iblog (once again, go to the history for today if you’re reading this much later).

Yeah, I have not seen this kind of cable for ten years. Seriously, the last time was when I was working for Las Vegas Computers, circa 1997 or so.

What we noticed first was a small leak under the stove. Then it disappeared. Next, there was a slight swell to some boards, but not enough to notice. Then one day, we walked into the kitchen, and there was a “holy cow!” moment as we realized there was a big hump in the floor, and that immediately above the tub in the basement was a spreading stain of yellow with a moldy spot in the center.

Yep, we had a leak.

Now, this wasn’t just any leak. I’m used to pressure-side leaks in a house. There’s a steady drip from some appliance or spigot in the house, and you just need to track down the cause of the wetness. I cut open the ceiling in the floor below the leak, and couldn’t clearly see where it was coming from. I could tell, however, that this leak was OLD… I pressed against the sub-flooring with my finger and was able to push straight through.

Gross.

Anyway, we filed the insurance claim and the demolition guys came out. It turns out it’s a sewer-side leak behind our kitchen sink, and it’s been there for YEARS. The mold was so well grown that it was stringy strands connecting boards over a foot apart. The smell was awful.

So right now, we’re living in a house without a kitchen, and the place we’re trying to rent out (price reduction coming soon! The market sets the price, and we’re above market, apparently.) simiultaneously has a tarped-up roof and no siding due to a windstorm.

When it rains, they say, it pours.

Well, in my case it’s a slow drip and a heavy wind. But I get the idea.

So i have spent the last couple of days listening to congressional hearings. I am beside myself about them. Apparently the Congress has nothing more pressing on their agenda, so they need to waste our tax dollars to investigate steroids in baseball. They spent about 4 1/2 hours on Wednesday talking to Roger Clemens about his suspected steroids use. Really? This is something that Congress needs to investigate? No laws need to be drafted, budgets reviewed, foreign policies to review? I know maybe we should have them investigate the NFL commissioner about the New England Patriots. No? Yeah – I think I will be sending more mail to my congressman to air my concerns over this. (I am sure they are tired of hearing from me).

Wow – our government is just scoring all kinds of brownie points this week.

hey.. I’ve been MIA (and will return) Meantime.. here’s someone else we haven’t seen since summer 1989 CLICK HERE TO SEE THE RETURN OF INDIANA JONES!!

Enjoy!

Bush has signed his stimulus plan. This plan offers $300 – $600 for individuals with income between $3,000 – $75,000. Couple with income under $150,000 will receive a refund of $1,200. Families with kids will receive an additional $300 / child (as of the end of the 2007 tax year).

The IRS will send out rebates — by mail or by direct deposit into your bank account — through the late spring and the summer. The rebates come in addition to any regular tax refund.

To pay for the rebates — which are estimated to cost about $117 billion over the next two years — the government will have to borrow more money, enlarging the budget deficit.

While I am happy to receive an additional amount of money, I am not sure that borrowing more money is the right approach. It seems an awful lot like we are taking from Peter to pay Paul. In the end the markers that these foreign banks have on U.S. assets will put us in a bad position. I think the shot of adrenaline that they are expecting this to provide will be short lived. The reports i have read state that they expect that only 20 – 40 percent of the rebates will be spent.

What do you think of the rebates?

We have discussed wine many times on this board. I have recently (within the last year) started to watch a video podcast called Wine Library TV run by Gary Vanerchuk. He has been making some big splashes in the wine world, and his video podcast has helped me immensly with getting a better understanding of the wine world and opening me up to trying some wine types that i probably would not have tried previously.

Thought i would share…

I think all the heretics I have known have been virtuous men. They have the virtue of fortitude or they would not venture to own their heresy; and they cannot afford to be deficient in any of the other virtues, as that would give advantage to their many enemies; and they have not like orthodox sinners, such a number of friends to excuse or justify them. Do not, however mistake me. It is not to my good friend’s heresy that I impute his honesty. On the contrary, ’tis his honesty that has brought upon him the character of heretic. –Benjamin Franklin

So the Wikipedia folks pick a featured article on a daily basis. It’s usually one that is well-written, features a neutral point of view, and otherwise adheres to the Wikipedia guidelines. Lo and behold, it came to pass that I beheld today’s featured article: Joseph Smith’s Golden Plates.

Now, many readers know my history as a Mormon. To sum up: convert at a young age, die-hard believer from 1990-2002, went on a mission, married in the Temple, lots of callings held, paid tithing (yes, that’s 1/10) of my gross pre-tax income to the church, left in 2002 after nearly a year of wrestling with the idea that my religion had required the same obligations of me — to sacrifice anything and everything, including my life if necessary, for building up the Kingdom of God — as was required of the 9/11 attackers.*

I thought it was cool that Moroni (or was it Nephi in this version of the story? Joseph recorded it both ways.) is handing Joe what plainly appear to be a pair of Ray-Ban Outsiders Wayfarer sunglasses.

Also notable is the lack of a “criticism” section. As noted by quite a few Wikipedia commenters, what little criticism exists on the page is buried amidst other sections and heavy with caveats. Completely missing from the page is that, outside a tiny religious minority, this story is regarded as totally fictional. I don’t know what to make of that, except that Wikipedia’s Neutral Point Of View guideline has been ignored…

* Note: Don’t try to poke holes in the reasons for my disbelief from this short summary. If you wanna’ know why I’m not Mormon anymore, book a trip and come see me; we’ll have a very long, wide-ranging chat.

So recently UltraMegaCorp, Inc. decided to change all their printers to “duplex by default”. That means the printer always prints front-and-back for every job, regardless of a user’s duplex settings.

Now, I totally understand the environmental and financial benefits. Use less paper, destroy fewer trees, reduce our environmental footprint, save money on paper, yadda yadda. Sure, OK, it makes perfect sense.

But when I need to print out two copies of a manifest for a container to ship — one for my records, and one for the shipping company — I don’t want two pages on the same %@$*#(& sheet! So now I have to print out four copies to get two copies, using twice the ink.

Yeah, good environmental decision. Kudos. But it’s a pain in my butt.