The Daily Diversion Archive For October, 2004

Monday October 4, 2004

So here I sit in what has to be the cheapest hotel in the Chicago Loop. I'm unimpressed. It's small, the valet parking has no in/out privileges and there's no broadband available. Life sucks.

There is one saving grace: I recently got a GSM phone to replace my old V60. I now have the V600. It's bluetooth enabled and I just happen to have a laptop that speaks bluetooth. Put these together and I can get dial-up internet service wherever I get phone service. Including in cruddy hotel rooms.

So yes, I'm typing on a cell phone link to the internet. Lordy, it ain't fast, but at least it's something.

The drive down didn't suck and Gus slept a goodly bit of the way. The traffic was far heavier than I thought it would be, but we made good time considering we stopped a couple extra times than normal. We'll be back in a very short while.

Wednesday October 20, 2004

Even though the Yankees beat the Twins in the Division Series this year, I'm still hoping the Red Sox win game 7.

What's cool?

Lake Forest's chapel, front-facing baby seats and David Ortiz.

What sucks?

Being short of money, not updating your blog and pain.

I wrenched my neck a couple of weeks back. I woke up the day after we returned from Chicago the first time and I could hardly move my neck. I had strained a muscle somewhere inside my neck that made it hurt to even swallow. That's not good, folks. I actually had to go to the Doctor's office and get some stuff for it. It was good stuff, too. Not only did the stuff knock me flat, but it also got rid of the pain and the problems nearly immediately. So here's to the Doc for getting it right.

I'm not sure why we've ended up being short of money. We've not been spending wildly, but the trips to Chicago and car insurance and some other crap snuck up on us and have made us squeak. That's a big, green bucket full of suck.

Gus is almost a year old now and on the way back from Chicago (from my cousin's wedding) we turned his baby seat around in the car and now he's facing forward. He really liked it. He liked it so much he sang for the first 20 minutes.

Bad hotels aside, our first trip to Chicago was kinda sucky. Gus ended up in an emergency room again. This time it was for a big, purple spot inside his mouth. The 4 (!) doctors who had a look at him at Children's in Chicago all pretty much agreed that an erupting tooth had broken some capillaries and the tooth trapped the blood on the top of the tooth. They said to watch it, but that it also wasn't something too bad. After a couple of weeks, it's turned out to be nothing at all and Gus has his first molar.

Sarah did a meeting thing and so Gus and I bummed around downtown. We did the John Hancock building and we got some really nice views of Chicago on a crisp, clear day. The trip back from that one was uneventful if a bit long.

After my neck issue, we started getting ready for Chicago again. This one was for business for Sarah (again), but also for my cousin Erin's wedding. The wedding was very nice and Lake Forest's campus is beautiful--especially with the fall colors in full swing. The reception was fun and the next day we left our hotel early to stop by my old pal Morgen's place in Milwaukee.

Later on, just west of Menominee, we saw the best fall colors I've ever seen. Everything around us suddenly turned into an impressionistic painting. The only thing that was a bummer was a bunch of tools in their riced-out sedans using 70 mph traffic as their slalom course. It was excellent beyond belief to find out the Wisconsin Staties had pulled all four of these idiots over and were in the process of calling in lots of backup before they even approached the cars. Those guys were in a world of hurt. I suspect that they were going to jail for at least a night, perhaps even longer. I also suspect that their cars are STILL in impound. I would not like to have been anyone in that little convoy of tools.

So now we're back and currently watching the Red Sox really take it to the Yankees. Life is good.

Wednesday October 27, 2004

So here we are, the day before Gus' first birthday. We've all the usual things on our mind about his birthday. Most of the plans have been planned and the stuff is piling up around the house. It's almost like we need to have a party just to get rid of the stuff. The party is sort-of filling in for an open house party as well. A lot of the people who are coming haven't seen the house yet. That means it has to be cleaned and polished and all that crapola.

So I've been busy of late working on that and other projects. I fixed the broken stair in the back hallway and darn near re-did the floor on a whim. I wish I was the sort who could just do household projects, but alas, I'm not. I guess I want to do them so perfectly that the effort required for perfection shows itself fairly quickly in the process and I just end up hiring someone who knows how to do whatever it is I need done. This is for the best as then I go do something I like to do, but it means projects have to wait until we have the money for them. Nobody likes to wait, especially me.

I really can't explain what I feel about my boy turning one. In one way, it will be just another day and he'll be pretty much the same the next day as he was the day before. In another way, it's a marker for how long he's been with us and it gives us a chance to think about how much he means to us. That is way cool and it's a way of thinking about birthdays I'd not thought of before. I know this: This will be the last birthday of Gus' that I'll be working. From now on this will be an official Tim Holiday.

I think the Red Sox will take it tonight. They've just had the answer for all the Cardinals challenges up until now and they have some tremendous momentum. Of course, there's still a chance they'll choke like the Yankees did and lose it yet again, but I don't think there's much of a chance of that.

On a darker note, I was thinking a few weeks ago about how our Islamist friends might try a move something like the train station in Spain immediately before our elections. There's been rumblings in the media today that there's a new videotape out from some Islamist nutball that says our rivers will run with blood and our hearts will know the depths of despair because we had audacity to go after a bunch of scum who thought it was a good idea to use passenger planes as guided bombs. I'm far more worried about something like this happening now because of my boy. I'd really like for him to not have to grow up in a world where people die suddenly and violently for no reason other than some Islamist scumjack wants to get into the heavenly whorehouse. I know the chances of that are remote, but I worry because I'm his daddy. I get to do this because that's part of the job.

As I was saying before, I was worried about some kind of attack before the election. I don't think it will happen. I just don't think the kind of attack Al Queda wants with the rivers of blood and yadda yadda yadda is within their capabilities. I don't have much faith in the TSA, but I do have faith that the TSA will stop enough of these suicidal twits that another 9/11 won't happen. I also think that it would be a battle royale inside the airplane if a group of terrorists do actually give it a shot. No airline passenger is going to sit and patiently wait to die. An airplane is just too crowded and close for something not to happen. So forget about the air.

That leaves some other way. I suppose a group could attack a football stadium or rock concert or something else. I suppose they could attack the power grid someplace. They might be able to attack the train system out east, but most of the country doesn't travel by rail with any frequency or density so that could only happen where it does.

I'm more of a believer in the theory that if they could attack again, they already would have. Sure, the US elections might be a time to pull off the covers on some operation, but I doubt it would have much of an effect. I suspect that any attack on US soil would guarantee Bush a victory. Kerry can say what he likes about not farming out US security to the UN and other organizations and he can say what he wants about killing terrorists, but the rub is this: Kerry has protested war in the past. He's voted against it in the past. He's wanted to give peace a chance in the past. Unfortunately for him, the Islamist scum aren't at all willing to give peace a chance and certainly aren't willing to listen to reason when there's a chance they can get into the Heavenly Whorehouse by taking the lives of Americans. I would guess that any pre-election attack will swing most of the undecided voters over to Bush and may just swing a few dedicated Kerry supporters that way as well. I doubt Joe Jihadi wants any more of Bush, so he's going to take his finger off his big red button until after the election.

I'd expect some kind of crap to happen if we re-elect Bush, but I don't see any change in the level of action in Iraq one way or another. It's one of those deals where their spokesmen will say "we'll stop if blah" when they fully intend to press on no matter what happens. In my old International Relations studies, we called those folks "irrational actors" and they really can't be negotiated with as they're always going to manipulate the process to their own advantage.

If it's in their advantage to lay low--perhaps to wait for something to happen or something to be delivered, then it's time to negotiate a cease-fire (hudna) that they'll instantly violate the second it's in their interests to do so. That's why Iran is playing the cheat and retreat game with the UN's IAEA. They'll say they'll stop when they need some time to do more work, then when they're found out they'll press on even harder towards their nuclear goals so that when the next round of negotiations happens, they're that much further and can move the negotiated settlement that much closer to their actual goal.

The only real and effective way to treat someone like this is to negotiate with them on one hand and do what they're doing on the other. In the case of the IAEA and such, I suspect Iran knows that the IAEA is nearly powerless to enforce any kind of sanctions on Iran. The real power comes from US and Israel's military assests and our willingness to use them to counter their bad-faith negotiations.

Israel? Yep. When Iran has the bomb, they're going to be testing it on Tel Aviv.

So once again, it would surprise me greatly if something happened in the US before the elections. Afterwards? Who knows?

Monday November 28, 2004

So it's been a month since I last posted. That sucks.

I've not had much to write about. Money's been tight. Our childcare setup has been in constant flux. I've been totally busting ass at work on Sarbanes Oxley compliance issues. 50 hour weeks and a baby that doesn't sleep really puts the kibosh on creative endeavors. I have it easy compared to other folks, but it's comparatively hard on me. I haven't worked this many hours in a week since the bus company days. That's actually a very long time ago.

Gus' birthday party was a great time. Thank you again to everyone who showed up, sent a card or gave us a call. You all rock.

I went shooting with John a couple of weeks back. That was big fun. I'd bet we killed off 100 rounds of .38 and probably 300 rounds of .22. We laid waste to hard drive platters and had a ball doing it.

We went to a party at Amanda and Dale's place. They're great and Amanda is a heck of a cook. They have a lovely house as well.

The Volvo gave me a scare yesterday. On the way to gas it up in preparation for a trip to Forest Lake with the Sarah, Gus the dog and myself, it conked out. Fortunately, it conked out a half-block from the gas station. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with it just then, so I walked back home and we took the Maxima. It was a little tight with the four of us in there, but it was OK. When we got back, I did a little research on the problem on the Brickboard and although I didn't find anything that described the problem exactly, I got enough of a hint to suspect that either the gas gauge was faulty or one of the fuel pumps is going out. Whatever the fact, I added about 7 gallons of gas via a gas can (I had pulled it away from the pump to let it sit while we went to Forest Lake) and it started right up. I added another 7 gallons from the pump and drove the thing home. Whatever.

Today we dropped Gus off at a friend's place and we went out for lunch. We stopped in at the Modern and said hello to our friends there. It was a yummy lunch. After lunch, we went over to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts to take in some art. We did the photographic exhibits, the modern design room and the political posters area in the lobby. That was a good time. It was nice to get a little time away from Gus with Sarah.

Is that so wrong?

About the only ting on my mind lately is that the Light Rail Line is going to be fully operational next week. Although it's great that it will be fully open, it's going to suck not riding it from the first stop in the morning. I just know it's going to get used enough that I'll only get a seat every once in a while. Don't get me wrong, I am glad it's done.