The Daily Diversion Archive For June, 2003

Monday June 1, 2003

I haven't felt inclined to write of late. I think this is a function of having many other fish to fry recently. I've done a lot of stuff, tackled a lot of projects and slain a bunch of dragons. It even feels as if life might slow down a bit for a while. That's something worth looking forward to for sure.

Apart from the really intense stuff going on lately of which I have no inclination to write about, not much else has been going on. Politics have cooled off, we're just cruising along and I'm just a boring, old fart.

Even this pathetic little screed has taken me a half hour. Some times writing is very, very hard. It shouldn't be, but sometimes it is.

Monday June 2, 2003

I've stayed away from the concealed carry law debate until now. That's right, time to tune out now. Actually, I don't have a lot to say. I don't have much of a problem with concealed firearms. You don't shoot me, I don't shoot you. It's a two-way street.

The problem I have with our new law is that it has some pretty stupid parts to it. The way it's written, it seems that if you want to prevent people from carrying on your premesis, you not only have to post it, but you have to verbally tell people as well. Somehow, I feel the NRA is behind this. Personally, I can't think of anything more stupid than carrying a pistol while you're catching a buzz. Following that in stupidity is carrying a pistol into a sporting event. I think that even the NRA might have a bit of a problem with alcohol and guns. Whatever the fact, I just can't wait to see signs that say, "NO CONCEALED FIREARMS" in the lobbies of the glitzy law offices, banks and malls downtown.

Saturday June 7, 2003

I picked up one of my favorite old albums off of eBay this week. It's Greener Postures by Snakefinger. He was a Residents collaborator out in San Fransisco back in the '80s and died an early death sometime in the late '80s or early '90s. If you're wondering what this stuff sounds like, imagine The Jazz Butcher meeting The Residents. If you don't know what I'm talking about, try Devo meets Frank Zappa. Certainly it's around in there somewhere. Most of you are probably thinking, "Oh, he likes DIFFICULT music." or something like that. It's true. As my buddy at work Luther said to me yesterday, "Almost all of my music now comes from recommendation, not from the radio."

Anyway, it was a great stroll to go down memory lane with Snakefinger on the CD. The whole album has made it to my iPod. That's the way it ought to be.

I had a pretty easy morning today. My wife left for breakfast with some friends and I just slept in. I made bacon and eggs and watched the dog go nuts. I think bacon just makes his whole being tremble. It resonates at his frequency. The dog just flat-out has a bacon jones.

They're digging up our street this summer. Apparently we're to get new streets, curbs, sewer lines, sidewalks and streetlights out of the deal. There's been an unintended side-effect. As the city has left the street torn up after some preliminary work, it seems that every SUV in the neighborhood has parked on our street. Even though there doesn't seem to be any family gatherings on our street, there seems to be about a dozen on our block at all times.

I had a busy day at work on Friday, but I was bathed in triumph. I solved problems like a genius and I only had to punt once. That's not too bad. I like days like that. I was tired as hell once I left, but it was a good kind of tired.

Time for coffee.

Wednesday June 11, 2003

I did a double-take yesterday. I could not believe what my eyes were telling me. I was driving down E. Third St. and in the on-coming lane was a white Pontiac Grand Am with a blue box-like container tied to its roof. Above the blue container there appeared to be a head.

I took all this in in a glance and so when the head detail registered in my tired-after-work brain, I took another look.

Yep, it's a head.

I followed the car with my eyes until it passed me going the other way. What I saw caused my mouth to drop open.

The Grand Am is a sporty car. It has a rear wing/spoiler thing on the trailing edge of its trunk. The owner of the head was sort of crouched on the trunk lid, holding on to the ropes holding the blue box on the roof and keeping himself in place by holding his feet up against the rear wing. All this at 30mph. Not that this guy was in enough danger, he was also moving around.

What could possibly have been going through that guy's head for him to consider riding on the outside of a car with no real place to hold on? Crack? Cocaine? PCP? Weapons-grade stupidity? To call this particular stunt stupid is to dilute the value of stupid as a word and as a concept.

To Mr. Stupid's credit, he looked wary--sort of an "I hope I don't fall off" expression. I will say this about seeing this guy, it made my fippin' day. Sarah called me from her car as I walked in the door. She said, you'll never believe what I just saw. I said, "You saw a guy hanging on to the back of a car." Obviously, we take the same route home.

The era of the Mercury Sable station wagon is over. The towing company came and took it away yesterday afternoon. I liked that car. It was comfy and it rode well, but it just kept breaking stuff.

I had to baby it for as long as we had it. I don't know if babying it helped it live longer of helped me to get sick of it sooner. Whatever the fact, the clunk at the stoplight ended the car's stay with us after about 10k miles. It seems a damn shame to get rid of a car with just a little over 100k on the odometer, but we didn't spend that much on it and we didn't expect all that much from it, either.

Wednesday June 18, 2003

I'm still loving my new car. Some day I'll even put a page up for it. I seem to be drowning in updates for this site. The count is up to an even dozen things on the todo list.

I played softball last Monday night. I had a decent night with 2 singles, a sacrifice and 4 RBIs. That's a pretty good night. The only way I know this is that our team scorekeeper and the manager put these stats on a spreadsheet. I didn't get too much bat into any of the hits or outs, but all the same it was a good night. I haven't played for a while, so I'm sore as all hell today. It's almost impossible to walk. I'll be good again for next game, but for now, I'm going to be hobbling around for a while.

Okay, the Royals have put a 12-spot up against the Twins. In that inning, there was one of the worst behind-the-plate umpire calls I've ever seen. He tossed J.C. Romero for hitting a batter with a huge overhand breaking ball. Crappy call, ump. Get a grip.

Wednesday June 24, 2003

So it's mid-summer severe storm freakout time for our local media outlets. Yes, we're having some severe weather tonight. Yes, there are tornadoes afoot. Yes, it would suck to die in a severe storm. However, to take up 30% of the TV screen with a vertical graphic, a text crawler, the channel logo and an animated map of the state is a bit over the top. I've griped about this before, but it just seems so odd after nearly a year of mellow weather.

Sorry about being off-line yesterday. It was the first extended downtime ever for the site. The storm responsible for the power outage that knocked our power out for about 12 hours happened in the dead of night and was completely gone by morning. Our power company had us back on the grid by about two in the afternoon, however my UPS doesn't automatically come back online with the return of power. I'll have to figure out how to better configure the UPS so's not to have that happen again.

The servers had to wait until I got home for me to throw the switch and have them all come back online. That's OK. They're back up after getting the day off.