A Budget
Last Updated:
Looking for
Computer Support Help?
Check Out
My Resume!
|
|
Hosted By...
|
||
|
A Budget Last Updated: Looking for Computer Support Help? Check Out My Resume! |
|
|||||
| |||||||
Update At 2300 I went to bed about 1:30 am, spent from 2:50 am to 3:15 am awake in the small room, and arose (punch-drunk and butt-ugly, as per usual) at the rollicking hour of 6:31 am. I don't need no steenken beauty sleep, I need coherency sleep. And this is the state in which my wife and I will attempt, later this very evening, to complete our christmas shopping. We need books and wearables, and perhaps a movie or two. And the stocking stuffers. We did get the tree in and up yesterday, today we got it lit (while remaining sober ourselves, mind you).
One Present Left When, if I am permitted, I confront St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, and he says (as I expect), "Nice try, but you need a bit more cooking - some time in Purgatory for you," I will point out that having four sisters who loved to shop (fortunately with a mother who didn't), a wife and daughter, both of whom ask for my opinion (though they do not precisely value it - there's a strange system at work whereby I say "looks nice" and the item is usually placed back upon the rack. If I shrug, it's placed on a "pending" pile. If I frown or say "oh, yuck" that's an almost certain buy decision. I must experiment more with this system), I have spent more than enough time trolling the girls clothing (and especially undergarment) aisles to shave off more than a small bit of my time in hell. Though I am certain I'll pay in other ways...
Update At 2330 Frankly, I don't like either of these men. The benefit they do have is that the remaining choices in the presidential election all are even less attractive than these two assholes, so once again, we hold our noses. My complaint with Dean is his rather strident insistence that he is the man to make the difference. Sorry, bub, but running a small out-of-the-way state (yeah, I know, the Vermonters will come kill me pretty quick) is not a substitute for running a federal government. Then again, I'm sure that Gen. Clark is well-qualified to lead in areas of both national security and diplomacy. What the heck does he know about trade, environment, or human services? I recall seeing a quote from this half-wit saying "sure, export programming jobs off-shore - we'll find other things to do". Right. First we export industrial jobs, then information jobs. Fortunately, service jobs can't be exported, so eventually we'll all know how to say "d'you want fries with that?" in six or seven languages. These two idiots are supposedly front-runners for the democratic endorsement. Sounds to me like they're well-suited to politics - gripe, bitch, complain, and blame all you want - truth, honesty, and accomplishment are right out the freaking window. Politics - if we were any smarter, it would be a crime. |
Update At 0900
Now, to finish the Christmas cards (see, it's a tradeoff - some of you More later - should I survive...
Update At 1345 I was downloading an update from Norton for the Antivirus I use, and it reported "you must reboot after download" (Yes, still 98 on my main machine - bite me. 2000 is more stable, but I can't upgrade this laptop without a whole mess of drivers I ain't got, and it requires cash if one is to do it legally - which I do). So I did. And it came up "NTLDR NOT FOUND - PRESS ANY KEY TO CONTINUE." Oh <Excessive Expletives Deleted>. Crapcakes. Etc. I looked, prefunctorially, for the now-legendary Win98 CD which I have been unable to find (there has got to be a way to buy a legitimate backup copy of a Windows 98 CD still - and if illegitimate, I guess I'll have to go that route - I must have a backup). I scratched my head, and decided that it was a sign from Santa Claus. Instead of sitting here on my rumpside, surfing the net and being generally a lazy wastrel (and wasting your time with my bloated meandering posts), I could go upstairs and deal with Christmas Cards. And so, on card number fifty (of about fifty-four, so far), the thought process went something like this... "Got to find a Win98 CD. She IS going to kill you, you haven't even uploaded the Santa Pictures yet. Santa pictures. SANTA PICTURES. WHICH ARE STILL ON THE FREAKING DISK IN THE FLOPPY DRIVE.. You are dumb." When I finally forced the floppy to eject, I was able to complete the boot cycle, and here I am - much to my chagrin. Oh well - perhaps my mea culpa (danged near typed meal culpa - which is usually what I have to do after I cook dinner) here will prevent one of you from further stupid acts. Remember, folks, we do these silly things so you don't have to - and I'm definitely emphasizing "silly" right now. In my defense, have I mentioned four hours of sleep or less each of the last two nights? I thought not. Chocolate. Must find chocolate. Then find the switch to re-engage the brain.
Update At 2045 Now, admittedly, some years, that just didn't tend to stop us. Some years, we were quite deep into the hole come January. Which is why we've learned to pay everything BEFORE we go Christmas shopping. Tonight's last pass was mostly Christmas Eve/Day food (we're grilling for Christmas Dinner), along with a bit of good luck in the candy department. The only item MIA on the list was, once again, "Hugs" - Hershey's made this thing called a "Hug" which was a combination of white and milk chocolate striped - they went on top of some of our favorite cookies. Oh well, we'll live. And I have officially hit that other wall - you know the one, coherency, intelligence, and all the rest. I'm going to collapse into bed shortly, and prepare for the day of a thousand cuts. Otherwise known as "that great waste of paper..." Yeah, I know. I'm soooooo happy. |
Update At 1115 One problem. We have a tape shortage. Second problem. We forgot the potatos and margarine at the store last night. Christmas will arrive, however.
|
Update At 0930 In those days, Caesar Augustus published a decree ordering a census of the whole world. This first census took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria. Everyone went to register, each to his own town. And so it came to pass that Joseph went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to David's town of Bethlehem - because he was of the line of David - to register with Mary, his espoused wife, who was great with child. While they were there her days of confinement were completed. She gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. There were in the fields, shepherds, watching their flocks by night. The angel of the Lord appeard to them as the glory of the Lord Sshone about them, and they were sore afraid. The Angel said to them "Fear not, for I bring to you tidings of great joy, for today, unto you in the city of David a savior has been born to you, he is Christ the Lord. "Let this be a sign to you; in a manger you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes." Suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying "Glory to God in the Highest, and Peace on earth to those on whom his favor rests. Luke, Chapter 2, 1:14 Obviously, I never made it back here yesterday. Note for next year - build a "bed-top-table" of some sort - large enough to handle most gifts, which can sit on top of the bed, and boost the height to that which I need not bend over and ruin my back. I spent from 11:30 am until 3:15 pm yesterday cutting, taping, and otherwise dealing with incredibly odd shapes. Such as have you ever tried to wrap a half-zip pullover without a box to put it in? Yeah, like that. The frustrating part is that, as the "Last One" to wrap, I got a total of three gift boxes to work with - and that's only because I'd hidden them. So of the twelve pieces of clothing I wrapped yesterday, only three went in boxes. The rest were ... oddly-shaped packages. Second tip - when shopping for wrapping paper in Target, avoid like the plague anything over 100 Square Feet on a roll - the circumference of the roll is the same as the 100-foot and down stuff - and the cardboard tube is the same. That's right, folks, thin, cheap paper. Ripped twice when I was wrapping stuff. As to the "haul" most of mine is already in the garage - the Lathe arrived early. My darling bride, however, took my worries to heart, and obtained for me a half-price "quiet" shop-vac. Memo to self - yet again, you must remember that asking "Did you get me a Shop-Vac?" is ineffective, as she will merely note (mentally) "it's a Quiet Shop Vac, so no, it's not a Shop Vac". Talk about someone ideally suited to be a defense attorney... As to the rest of the bunch, both kids got toys (Rhiannon a doll or two and some horse figures, Jack got a snowboard, legos, and a kit to build a flip-flop racer - yes, pictures later) - but the big present was, as muttered about herein earlier, a blasted PlayStation/2. Er, sorry, that would be PlayStation2 - I think IBM still holds copyright on the whole "/2" thing from the old, er, original PS/2 days. Games? Yeah, they got games. Some even for Mom and Dad - Risk was one, I think. There's also Jedi Starfighter - which freaked me out because I was flying - or trying to fly - this fighter down a canyon, and what ended up happening was I'd hit a wall - and the controller would jiggle in my hands. There's something I don't appreciate. There's also a snowboarding game (unfortunately, not the top-rated SSX hit, but some other one - then again, when I'm faced with two snowboarding games, one $49.99 and one used at $9.99, do you think I'm going to fork out an extra forty bucks for some name - which I've never heard before - who is the "expert" in the field? Right...). Ann? Well, she got Jammies (which she asked for - no, nothing racy from the lingere section, I've had that explained quite clearly to me), slippers, an onyx cross with fake diamonds in it, and a cutting board - and some other stuff. Other than that, that's about it. We came home from Church last night (wherein the young fellow playing the trap set fell into the "trap" - he believed that he was there as the star of the show. Sadly, so did our organist. When you have two people - one a teenager, the other an adult, one with amplification and a three-level keyboard plus foot pedals, and the other with a couple of 2B sticks, the results are most often a draw. Or are, if you are semi-talented. This kid was one of those "I may not know where the beat is, but I'll set my own if'n I have to" type - in other words, it was the "feeling" rather than the "rhythm" which moved him. Not good. I've always believed that in the rhythmic percussion field it's better to be on the beat than off - volume does not make up for sins of poor tempo. Oh, well. Tis Christmas. Hopefully he'll get lessons. Now, I must go finish a web site - well, start, then finish.
Update At 1500
Organizers charge white students $1 for a cookie, while blacks and other minorities pay 25 to 95 cents. Doughnuts are available for 50 cents to everyone except Asian Americans and whites, who cannot purchase them. Ingenious. Of course, they do not bother to point out that if you "level the playing field" as it were in terms of income and opportunity, each "minority dollar" would be worth about eight "white-boy-bucks" - and if the "White Boy" in question had been born to a wealthy family, the Minority Dollar would immediately be worth about $800,000. What sickens me when "College Republicans" do crap like this is the same thing that drove me from them when I was in college - the Republican Ideal of "I got here, you can, too - just a minute while I take a crap down the mountain side you're climbing on." The Republican ideal is, and has long been, let the strongest survive. Nothing wrong with that, if you compete on a level playing field. If, however, you've got yourself an M-1A1 tank, and your opponent shows up with a checkerboard, you've got a disadvantage - and that's what it is when Mommy and Daddy Richbastard pay your way (or bail your butt out). I went to a school which attracted a boatload of such punks. Oddly enough, rather than catering to their moneyed tastes, the school spent a great deal of time opening their eyes to the injustices and misbehaviors that grew from such schmucks having such massive amounts of money to play with. I wonder if these young college republican punks have worked for their living - without a net, without a backup, and without anyone to turn to when things get tough. I wonder what they'd do if faced with a decision like "electricity or food". I wonder if these kids understand hard choices. Then again, I wonder if they could make them. Oh well, perhaps I'm just cranky. I should probably check the food situation and get ready to grill... |
Update At 1445 I grew up near farms, and many of my friends in school were farm kids. It's part of living in the rural areas. BSE, or Mad Cow, as we've taken to calling it, is a relatively new development. However, it's also pretty easy to keep an eye on. Do you like head cheese? Do you eat the spinal column of a cow? (look, I know of people who would waste nothing of a cow - I'm telling you that every ounce of a beef cow COULD be used. I ain't tellin you fer what, because, frankly, some of you may wish to eat again later next year, but trust me - even the asshole is a muscle...) If you eat either of those items, you'd best beware of the dangers of various diseases - Cruetzfeldt-Jacob Disease, for one, or Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker syndrome. Neither is particularly fun, nor is it particularly common. On the other hand, folks, let's step back a bit. 90% of what we eat off a cow (aside from you wackos who eat "sweetmeats" like the glands) is PROTEIN - in the form of muscle. Now recent studies by many, including Nobel-prize winning Dr. Stanley Prusner, has identified the "prion" which is a munged-up acronym for "proteinaceous infectious particle" - has shown that protein can CARRY an infectious agent - but the agent ITSELF is the source of the disease - not the protein - or meat. So we have the prospect of tainted meat, yes? Well, no, not really, no. Considering first that this was a downer milk cow which was sold for beef, and could be tracked with accuracy, we know where the cow's parts are. If this cow had been a beef cow, it might have been a much bigger problem. So, yeah, there's a possibility that you could get CJD or GSS from eating beef. There's a much better chance that you will get nailed by a passing car in an accident on the way to or from somewhere in the next week - and get hit by lightening at the same time. I figure that the Mad Cow panic's going to be a positive thing - first, there will be a requirement by the FDA for cattle ranchers to register each individual cow with a number - heck, give each cattle rancher a number, or use their business number, whatever. Have them tack on a number after that - So "Bessie" is known as #343-2902J-MN-19990414-09 - the 343-2902J being the farmer's business number, the -MN- identifying the cow as coming from Minnesota, and good old Bessie was cow number 9 (09) dropped on April 14, 1999 (19990414). Complex, no, but it works for me. Second is that - hopefully - the Bush administration will stop the "support-the-rich" program they've been on with tax cuts and the like and sink some money into science - specifically, food science - to improve the food supply. Sure, we may have the "safest food supply" but let's take the opportunity to make it better. Finally, the last "good" thing about Mad Cow is it's going to bring prices down - if we can't export, we're going to have more meat here. Works for me...
Murphy's Boxing Day Today was the day I would go into production-line mode on the pens. I'd come up with a new jig for clamping and drilling my blocks of wood, and I was ready to go. I cut up seven blanks, all ready to go, and started drilling them. On blank #3, the "Drill Guidemaster" tool I bought from Rockler blew up. The "Guidemaster" is a lot like many, many similar kits - it holds a drill in a fixed position to drill at a set angle. Nothing too fancy about it - it's a heck of a lot cheaper than a drill press - or was when I started this. But the problem comes in with the tool's construction. The "Guidemaster" has it's own drill chuck, which is affixed to the end of a shaft. That shaft is captured in a steel arm which is affixed to two aluminium posts - but it can slide up and down them. The shaft, however, is held in place in the steel arm by two flat washer-type gadgets - about 1/32" of an inch thick, which attach to small slots in the shaft. They prevent the shaft from sliding through and falling out of the arm. Or are supposed to. I've drilled perhaps twenty-five holes with this Guidemaster, and the rings popped off. So now I've got to decide whether to bag it all or scrape up the $60 to buy the drill press that was on sale for $50 before Christmas... SWMBO Ain't Gonna Like This One (the words are capitalized in case they are needed for my tombstone...). |
Update At 2245 I'll spare you the long dissertation - I've acquired a drill press - and made a pen - and it seems that the US Beef industry ISN'T to blame for the BSE - it may be imported. Off to see what other trouble I can get into... |
Update At 2230 Last night, in the "minor problem" area, I was faced with a small problem when I prepared to wrap my father's Christmas Present, Pen 1.0 (Alpha, Beta 1 and Beta 2 are in pieces in the garage as "don't do this", while Release Candidate 1 is in Ann's purse - it writes, but does not retract). I'd wimped out (yes, I do that occasionally), and plunked down $4 for a walnut presentation box for my father. The $4 was a great relief, as a box made out of walnut would have likely cost me well over $200 (there's the wood, then the router table, then more router bits, then these funky miniature barrel hinges, see, and then there's the ... never mind). However, when I unboxed the presentation box and set it next to the highly polished pen (three coats satin wax, one coat gloss wax (repeated coats of gloss do not make something glossier - they cloud up after a while - yes, I see you in the back nodding and saying to yourself "yes, that's why that thing looks all milky"), and two coats crystal coat, and that thing positively glowed), I realized unfinished (but sanded) walnut looked like pine next to the highly polished cocobolo. Hmmm, I said to myself. No buffer, no way to paste-wax the thing. But wait! I had shop towels. I had carriage bolts, nuts, and washers. So I made myself a "flap buffer" for my drill. I took about a half-dozen of the nine inch by twelve inch towels, folded them (individually) into quarters, clamped them between two thin pieces of wood, and then drilled a hole through the middle. I then unclamped them (carefully), and inserted a carriage bolt with washer. On the other side I added a half-dozen washers (just in case), and a nut. I tightened the nut down, then ran the drill in reverse (which kept the nut tight), and buffed the box. It did fly out of my hands once, and it also got dinged once on the edge by the threads of the carriage bolt - by the time I was done buffing, though, I wasn't able to find the dings. Viola. So today, we did Christmas In St. Cloud. It went well (I swear to you, when there is a production line somewhere on this planet that produces this sort of thing, it's not terrorism we need to be worried about...), for the most part. It was the trip home that nearly sucked dead bunnies through an exhaust pipe. Crossing Division (the main drag in St. Cloud), the high-temp light came on. I noticed the temperature gauge was stuck on H, which is, I know, a Very Bad Thing. I pulled off the road and checked to see where my sister was - just in case. She wasn't anywhere close by (out ahead of us on the freeway), so I headed across the road to Shopko - my former employer, yes - where I picked up two gallons of ready-mixed antifreeze, a socket set, some funnels, some rags, and a pair of gloves. And flashlights. I returned to the parking lot - to find my sister and her husband right next to the car. We popped the hood, and found the overflow tank for the radiator - well, it was the ONLY tank for the radiator that I could find. A couple weeks ago I noticed the heater blowing cold air when it should have been warm. Hmnmmnm, my subconscious said, I've seen this before. So I mulled it over. Aha! Stuck Thermostat! Then, of course, I promptly forgot the issue - until the vehicle overheated. I reasoned that if the vehicle had gotten that hot, there might have been a blow-off of fluid. Therefore, perhaps, I was low. The alternative was to remove the thermostat (while not recommended, you CAN run a vehicle for short periods (a few days or so) without one), and I was prepared to do just that. Fortunately (he said, somewhat chagrinned), the reservior was dry - so I opened and poured about half a gallon of the ready-mixed fluid into the tank, and then started the car. Just as fortunately, the temperature hit Hot again and immediately dropped - past half, and down to nearly where it was during normal operation. So my sister followed me home, and not a single bobble in the temp the whole time. Regardless, I'm going to hit Checker Auto Parts tomorrow and pick up a Thermostat, a gallon of windshield washer fluid, and check the prices on headlight bulbs (yeah, one of those is out too). Best not to keep tempting fate... Then again, one look at the Vikings today was more than enough. Congrats to Keri, who gets to watch her beloved Seagulls crap in Green Bay, while our Viqueens are surprised they're out of the playoffs. Yeah, right. After that first quarter, the question for me wasn't "would they make the playoffs" but "how are they gonna screw this one up?" And it took a team so desperate for self-respect that they gave up the first overall draft pick and dropped to THIRD to beat the Vikings - hell, the "Home Team" crowd was mostly Vikings fans. Go figure. I learned long ago when playing football that to win, one needed to have hands, feet, legs, broad shoulders, and a brain. Sadly, the Vikings are lacking in just about every area... |
Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 John
P. Dominik. All rights reserved. No reproduction without express
written permission. Opinions expressed herein are my own, and my fault. For further information, check out my other home page.