The Daily Diversion Archive For June, 2002

Monday June 3, 2002

Happy birthday to Jane and Claus!

It was a productive weekend. Well, at least Saturday was. Sunday was spent trying to get some stuff done in the office. I was mostly successful, but it's bad when you look up and it's 6PM when it should only be 3. Drag.

We went to one of my favorite bars for dinner last night and I became aware of how much TV I don't watch any more. Not only did it seem way too loud, but it was just overwhelming. It was the basketball game that was on last night and it just dominated everything my wife and I were trying to say. We ended up filing the evening away under good food and a cross-cultural experience. Since we don't watch much TV, it was almost like observing a different culture.

By the way, people with money must watch pro basketball. There were tons of commercials on for investment services and such. Also, American Express says that if you can't spend time with your kids, you can buy them off with trips to Disneyland. That was the gist of one of their commercials. Dad was calling home to say that he really needed to make this meeting and that he wouldn't be able to catch Junior's recital or something. After hanging up on his family, he turned around and booked a trip to Disneyland with his AMEX card. Moral: You CAN use money to assuage your guilty conscience--and the kind folks at AMEX can help!

What a bunch of shit.

To the person who sent me an ignition system for my old Gold Wing, let me know your email address again. I seemed to have lost it. I figure it's inside one of my dead laptops. Nuts. By the way, the ignition system works just fine, so a million thanks to you.

Wednesday June 5, 2002

I gotta find a good way home. My commute in the morning is a breeze. I'm doing more than the legal limit from the time I leave my house to the time I hit downtown Minneapolis. Sometimes there's a slowdown around HWY280 or at the river bridge, but most days are smooth sailing. It's pretty cool.

The afternoon is another story entirely. From getting out of my parking lot, to the always backed up intersection of 4th and Marquette to crossing the pinch point at Portland and 5th to the huge bottleneck on I-94 at the 6th St. on ramp to the inevitable slowdown at the river and at the Ontario St. curve to the occasional slowdown at Cretin-Vandalia to the frickin' enormous backup coming into downtown St. Paul that usually starts just after Lexington to the mess that is Spaghetti Junction to the unexplainable slowdown on the hill coming up Dayton's Bluff it easily takes twice as long to get home as it does to get to work.

I've decided that if I'm not on my motorcycle, I'm going to have to car pool. I hate waiting in traffic jams, so if I can turn that time into productive time, I win both coming and going to work. I'll start looking into my options this fall. I've also decided that if it's going to take a half-hour or more to get home, it might as well enjoy it.

You won't find me on the freeway on my motorcycle in the afternoon anymore. I either take 3rd street out of downtown to the Northeast, take a right on 2nd Street just over the bridge and take that all the way into Dinkytown. From there I get over to Rollins and take the Rollins/Kasota/Energy Park Drive all the way to Snelling Ave. From there I jump over to Pierce Butler Route and take that to its end at Minnehaha. I take Minnehaha to Como and hook up with Pennsylvania Ave. I get off on Jackson St. and follow that North to the secret street under I-35E (Cayuga) and then weave through the back streets of the Upper East Side until I find myself back in my driveway. It takes nearly the same amount of time and I find myself waiting for stop signs and stoplights. Not stopped traffic. I have a much easier time of it frustration-wise to be stopped for a reason. A red light or a stop sign is far easier for me to take than traffic stopped on a road that in a couple of hours people will be doing 65mph on again. I understand road capacities, but being stopped on the expressway drives me nuts. The Least Self-Loathing Option is to make my commute easier on me. Therefore, I'm taking the back roads.

In case I didn't mention it before, there's new tunes over on the right column. Click on "Tunes" to get to the menu page. I'm sorry for all the bouncy stuff. I'm assembling tunes presently for next month's cock-rock bonanza. Stay tuned.

Thursday June 6, 2002

I went for a ride last night. I had just finished fixing the turn signals on my old Suzuki and I decided to take it out for a long ride. In my travels, I swung by my pal Pete's place, but he wasn't home. I then swung by our old house just to see it again. I hadn't seen it since we left it for the last time on December 20. It was good to see it again, but I didn't linger. That would have been spooky. The fella that bought the place from us hasn't done anything major to the outside of the place. The lawn, the plants and the fence all look exactly the same.

It was a bittersweet reminder of why we left, though. As I passed the old place, ahead of me in the intersection were no less than 20 kids just hanging out. My bike is pretty loud what with the crossover pipes not sealed, but I could still hear them from about 200' away. Amazing. Loud. Not an adult in site and the average age of these kids was probably 10 years old. It was also around 9PM. So nothing has changed.

The exodus from Fremont Avenue N is continuing as well. In the two blocks I drove it, there were 5 houses for sale. I didn't see any on our block or the surrounding blocks, so it's nice to see that people aren't leaving in droves. That wouldn't be nice. Driving around the area, I was reminded of the reasons why we left.

I was kinda lonesome for the old place, but I just can't deal with the area.

The bike performed very nicely all evening. It's becoming rather pleasant to ride. Sure there's a list of things I'd like to do to it so it can become as much like an appliance as possible, but as for now, it's a fun ride.

Monday June 10, 2002

Well I did go to First Thursday last week and it was fun. The one problem was that although the day was a bright and sunny one, a slow-moving thunderstorm pretty much brought the evening to a close. As I was riding out to my buddy Paul's place, I saw this enormous massing of clouds in the western sky. Bummer. We went anyway because all I would get was wet from the rain. It turned out to be a pretty fun time. I saw a bunch of cool bikes, caught up with my old friend Liz, and pretty much just walked around for a while. Paul and I left when we heard thunder and saw some lightning.

I decided to take the southern route home and it was a mistake. It seemed the clouds extended themselves over me as I beat hell down I-35W to the Crosstown. As I was haulin' past the airport, I started getting hit by raindrops the size of quarters. They were thankfully infrequent, but they signaled that bad things were about to happen.

I crossed the river and took Shephard Road back to my side of town. Going through downtown, I hit a small shower--just enough to dampen my clothes. Nothing huge. The bike was not bothered by it, so I just continued through. I did eventually make it home without getting too wet. My wife and I sat down on the porch to watch the thunderstorm that I thought would be right behind me roll through.

Wrong.

We sat up watching the sky boil and hearing the nearly incessant rumblings from the west, but after an hour and a half passed, it was totally dark outside and STILL not raining. We went to bed.

It did eventually rain, but I'm sure it was long after we retired.

Silly weather.

Saturday found us out of the cities at a dog show out in Waconia. It's strange to see people who are following a way of life, not just a hobby. These people know their dogs backwards and forth. They have a far different approach to dog ownership than I do. They live a life totally devoted to their dogs. I know a few people like this. The ones I know are really into horses. They seem to be people cut from the same cloth.

Actually, it was comforting to see someone even farther off the deep end over their avocation than I am about mine. It made me feel normal.

After the dog show, our friends John and Yumi had us over for an excellent barbecue. On the way home, we spotted what could be our next car. Someone had a decent Sable stawag by the side of the road. It was not ancient, and they wanted around a grand for it. That's our price, our year and the car passed muster visually without any reservations at all. If it hasn't sold by tomorrow evening, we're going to go out and have a look.

On Sunday, we went to Rochester to go to my cousins' graduation parties. Way to go, Brian and Erin!

Wednesday June 12, 2002

Happy birthday, Mom!

We picked up another car last night. It's a 1991 Mercury Sable station wagon. Yes, I finally got a station wagon. Practicality rules. My life is over. Still, it's better than a minivan.

We picked it up from a nice fella in the country for a grand. It needs a few things, but nothing immediately. It feels good. Actually, it reminds me of my '84 Ford Tempo quite a bit. It has the same kind of dash feel, the same kind of seat feel and the same sort of sloping roofline that made the Tempo such a nice car to drive. The new machine has a decent stereo and it doesn't appear that anything except the air conditioning is broken. We'll be fixing the air, no doubt about it. I'll also have a page up and some pictures as soon as I can.

Due to a sore finger, that's all I can do for today. I have a lot more to say, but the middle finger on my right hand is hurting me even through an ibuprofen horse-pill. Here's hoping that doesn't last.

Monday June 17, 2002

It was a good weekend. I said that already in the right column. It was good though. It bears repeating.

I ended up tossing a bunch of money and time at the Sable this weekend. The list included various light bulbs, a glue kit for the rear view mirror, brake rotors and a front motor mount. The motor mount wasn't cheap, but with only a nut securing the bottom and a bolt securing the top, it HAD to be an easy job. Right? I also picked up some radiator hose to replace the cracked one that spewed coolant all over the engine bay. A cap and rotor rounded out the trip to the parts store.

Today there's only two things left to do. The rotors still need to be done, but I may have to have someone else do them for me as they seem to be rusted on. This isn't uncommon, but I was hoping to get lucky. The other thing that still needs doing is getting the rearview mirror stuck back on. I'll get to that tonight, I think.

I did a bunch of stuff on Friday night. I wanted to drive the car on the weekend, so I had to patch the radiator hose ASAP. I did that and changed some bulbs on Friday. On Saturday I went to the store to get a jack as it seems that my old one gave up sometime within the last 6 months or so. No biggie. Anyway, I got down to business at about 1 in the afternoon on the motor mount.

At first it looked like a piece of cake. The lower bolt is exposed on the bottom of the car and the upper one wasn't hard to get to, either. The lower came of without a hitch and although I had some difficulty with the top bolt, it eventually came out. I found that the mount is full of hydraulic fluid. I also found out that hydraulic fluid spilling unexpectedly on your face is unpleasant. The motor mount spilled its guts and then exited the car.

The new one was in one piece --BONUS!-- and it went in even easier than the old one came out. Until, that is, it came time to line up the top bolt. The thing wouldn't line up for love or money. These things don't matter much to a bolt. Especially one with no shoulder at the tip of the shaft and even more so for one that was going into a hole with no guide bevel. Hoo boy was that not fun. It took me nearly 2 hours of messing with it before it threaded. Wow.

It finally went in and that was that. I had no more gumption to do any more car work.

On Sunday, we went to an antique show at the State Fair grounds. It was big, there was a lot of stuff, but aside from some maps that I couldn't justify dropping a ton of money on, I really didn't find much that I wanted.

Monday June 24, 2002

Tragedy struck the house this weekend. Well, not exactly tragedy. A mishap. An emergency room visit. A limp that will last a couple of weeks.

It wasn't me, I'm sorry to say. I am no stranger to turning my ankles. I've done both more times than I can remember. My ligaments are so stretched, they must look like rubber bands. No, my ankles are loose, floppy things that will betray me if I take them for granted for just one step. I turned one so hard about 6 years back that the bottom of my shin bone hit the pavement. That's at least a 90 degree bend, folks. It swelled up like a football, and I'd had enough. After I could walk again, I bought a pair of combat boots, laced them up high on my legs and and wore nothing but combat boots on my feet for 4 years. I haven't had a sprain since.

This little injury time-out was all my wife's.

Sorry, hon.

I will say this: If you must go to the emergency room on the weekend, the best time to do it is on Saturday morning about 6:00 AM. There was nobody there and we were in and out in about an hour. What a deal.

I could tell it'd been a long time since I'd been in an emergency room as well. I could usually bank on at least two trips a year when I was a kid. One trip would be for the inevitable bout of strep throat or whatever major malady of the year and the other trip would be some sort of physical injury. I don't think I've been IN the emergency room for over 5 years. It's probably been 7 or so, come to think of it. Sure, I've been to urgent care a couple of times, and to the doc's office even more than that, but the ER has not been a place I've visited recently.

The equipment had changed. A lot.

The mobile X-ray machine was probably the coolest thing I saw. This thing was about half the size of a small forklift, had a long boom for the zapper, moved with it's own motor and was controlled by one of those T handles like a motorized pallet jack. Very impressive. There were also knee-operated faucet controls on the sink, a mysterious bucket at the base of the sink, lots of jacks in the wall for all kinds of things and a gurney that must require a training course to learn how to operate it. The thing that seemed the most appropriate was the big, computer controlled inventory cabinet. When our nurse guy came in to do the air-cast thing, he entered a code on a 4u rack mounted CPU integrated into the front of the cabinet. It beeped, booped, buzzed and clicked. The guy opened the glass door for the appropriate splint, touched a button just under the item, took out an item and shut the door.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what that cabinet was for. It was for controlling the coming and going of products the docs and nurses need for treating patients. Nurse Bill enters his code or perhaps his code and the code on my wife's hospital bracelet. He then opens the door, punches the inventory button under the product he's about to use and then shuts the door again.

The computer will then bill the product to our bill, order another one to replace the used one and probably track and record 100 other metrics at the same time. Pretty sharp system. Long overdue, too.

I went to the first meeting of TCBUG on Saturday. It was pretty neat. My kind of people. I have the feeling that I will be able to gain much knowledge from this group and I can only hope I can give some back as well. One of the first things I'm going to try for the group (and myself) is a developers install of FreeBSD 5. The reason is that I want BSD on my laptop and FreeBSD 5 will be supporting CardBus PCMCIA slots. That's big news for me. I was faced with having to acquire a 16bit PCMCIA 10/100 ethernet card to run FreeBSD 4.6. I'd rather not spend the money. Wish me luck on that little project.

I've also taken my SETI@Home tally and joined the team from Webwarrior.net. Webwarrior seems like it could be a cool place to hang out. I've made it my home page on a couple of my machines, mostly because Slashdot is getting a bit long on the paranoia over the various right-reducing laws recently enacted and, to borrow a phrase from Josh, the signal to noise ratio is approaching 1.

Most of the rest of this last weekend was spent hiding out in the bedroom, languishing in our only air conditioned air.

This week looks to be fairly interesting. Our fence will most likely be finished early this week. Cool. Less important but still interesting will be the Twins/ Chisox 4 game series starting Monday at the Dome. Set your radios up on Thursday as it's a day game. I'll either be there with Louie, or I'll be listening in from my desk. If the Twins sweep the ChiSox, they could have a 10 game lead on them by the end of the week. The week doesn't look all that good for the Indians, either. They're starting a series with the BoSox. The BoSox have a slim lead over the Yankees and they NEED to win those games. It's looking to be a Twins week. Remember to vote for Torii and A.J. in your all-star ballots.

Thursday June 20, 2002

So I hear there's some kind of soccer tournament going on.

I suppose this is a real, huge deal to some people. Not to me. As an American, I feel it is my duty to support sports that are popular here. I like Football. Not American Football, Football. FOOTBALL football. Not some round-ball chasing, can't-use-your-hands football. Not a final score of 1-0 football. Nope. I like real football with an odd-shaped ball, downs and forward passes. That's the kind of football I like, yessiree.

I love baseball, too. I hate that Anti-Christ Bud Selig freak. My old buddy Slappy used to say that Scott Leius was the Anti-Christ. Why? I dunno. I guess he just missed Mike Pagliarulo over at 3rd base for the Twins. I think Slappy would now agree that Bud Selig, even though he's from Slappy's home state of Wisconsin, is indeed TAC (that's The Anti-Christ--I'm tired of typing it out). Anyway, baseball is my absolute favorite sport to watch.

As an American, we have tons of better things to do than run around chasing a big ball. If you run in this country, you're either getting in shape, or you're getting shot at. A sport that consists of all running around? Thanks, no.

I played soccer when I was a kid. I wasn't the real focused type and I found that playing soccer meant that I had put myself in the way of doing two things I'm not particularly good at: Standing around and running. Yes, those are the two things you do when playing baseball and softball, but the deal there is that you're not required to pay attention the whole time you're standing around and running. When you're in the field, you pay attention when the ball is pitched and the play is on. When it's over, you stand around until the next play is on. The same thing goes when you're in the batter's box. When the pitcher throws the ball, you pay attention. When you've determined the ball is hittable, you swing. If not, you just stand there. After you swing, then you get to run around.

With soccer, it was pretty much stand around paying attention until the ball got close to me. Then get my ass kicked by guys who could run twice as fast as I could. Not fun.

It seems that soccer today here in the US is played by a lot of people who take it very seriously. That's fine. I take baseball very seriously. However, I don't look upon people who don't like baseball as if their knuckles are dragging on the ground and they're breathing through their mouth. If you don't like baseball, fine. Don't bother me with this "soccer is so great" stuff. Soccer is boring. I'd rather watch golf. And golf is a thousand times more fun the play than it is to watch. The same can't be said for soccer, I'm afraid. I really dislike it when people think it is some kind of personal shortcoming to not like soccer.

The fence guys should be finishing up right about now with our new backyard fence. I can't wait. The dog will love not being on a leash for his outside time. He's a good dog. He deserves to run around.

We're also getting the car back from the shop today. We could use the thing tonight again. Here's hoping it will be ready on time and under budget.

I've had a touch of the old writer's block of late. I just don't feel much like writing. So it goes...

I'm sitting here in the basement, trying to keep cool. It's about 9PM and it's still in the 80s. It's not that cool in the basement, either.

Big things are happening around the old home front. They dug the posts for our new fence yesterday. That's a cool deal there. They'll probably finish it tomorrow. Good money spent well.

We're also going to be spending some money on the Sable this week. It's in the shop for its once-over-twice checkup. It's in pretty good shape according to the shop guy. It's going to cost us some green to get it into better shape, but that's what cars are for, right?

Blah.

It's hot. I'm going to bed.

Wednesday June 26, 2002

I got my Microsoft "Go Pro" XP Professional promotional stuff yesterday. It came in a big box with a full version of XP Pro. The promo campaign is baseball themed and so to follow this theme, I got an XP Pro baseball encased in a plastic cube, a pack of XP Pro trading cards (characters based on traits exhibited by XP) and ... an XP Pro character bobblehead doll. The baseball and cards are neato, but the bobblehead doll is definitely over-the-top. I'm mystified as to what to do with it. I think it's cool, but I try not to let too much stuff in the front door. Another odd thing is that I checked ebay for these bobblehead dolls and there isn't any. Hmmm...

I also played with XP a little last night. I must say, there are some really cool features in it. I especially liked the picture organizer/slideshow feature. I need that kind of thing badly. I must have 10 thousand images on my main machine at home. No, not porno images. If you've explored the site a bit, you probably know I'm a Minneapolis History buff. If you haven't, click on over to the front door of the main site and click on the Minneapolis History button.
CLICK HERE

Thursday June 27, 2002

I went to the batting cages with Louie last night. We arrived just ahead of a field trip group with a bazillion kids. I thought it would be a drag having all those rugrats around, but it turned out the batting cage place also had mini-golf, an arcade and some other stuff. There were a handful of kids around, but only one wanted our cage.

We took a fair few rounds each. I would have liked to have done some more, but I didn't want to raise any blisters on my hands. I feel the whole session was very productive.

The fence was finished yesterday. We're impressed. The price was a bit more than our budget, but we did add on a couple of things that we didn't really plan on doing. The whole shooting match came in under 5 grand and that's just fine. The dog loves being able to run around and play ball without the lead. Very nice for him and very nice for us. He seems to get his business done far faster when he's not distracted by rabbits, squirrels, children, cars, crows, grackles, sparrows, me, raccoons, and other people. This morning it took us 3 minutes to toss the ball around and get the business done. Good boy!

As mentioned in the side panel, I'm installing FreeBSD 5.0 on my laptop. I'll keep you all posted on the progress.