Disconnect! Reboot!

Ok, I absolutely adore Lileks.com (especially the Gallery of Regrettable Food, which leaves me in physical pain from laughing so hard) -- but I found this on the site today and I was laughing like a hyena.


Which became even more funny when we saw a commercial for this lovely item -- The Presto, an email printer that "doesn't need an internet connection" and is "simpler than a computer" for your obviously senile relatives who can't figure out Outlook.

We're worried that Grandma and Grandpa can't learn to use the computer?

Just look at this page. I dare you not to laugh. I double-dog dare you!

Starchy Comfort

We only got about 10" of snow last night, so we dug out and prepared for more snow, which is supposed to continue for the next three days. It's just sort of flurrying right now, but the radar views show a "second wave" coming tonight. So we headed ot the grocery store, just in case.

The Adorable Husband got chains for his car, which was a fabulous idea. We probably wouldn't have made it out of the neighborhood without them, although the roads elsewhere were pretty good.

We had a good laugh on the way home from the store, though -- I apparently connected with my polish/eastern european roots (and he to his equally starch-based Scandinavian ancestry) and we ended up with about fourteen pounds of BREAD. Seriously. If you're going to be trapped in your house for a few days, obviously you need bread, we both thought. Five loaves. And sandwich buns. Over half of the groceries were a bread product of one sort or another. The other half was large hunks of beef.

We're awfully strange. But we can grill steaks for the next four days without a problem, and we have enough in the house to put together a pretty snazzy fondue dinner on New Year's eve withn our friends. We're set!

Hopefully, the airport isn't shut down and chaotic, since we are supposed to leave on Monday for Disneyworld. My family isn't flying out until Tues, so we should be able to settle in beforehand. And if we're late? Well, no problem.

Progress?

Bush, last week:

We're making good progress towards coming up with a plan [in Iraq]

I actually sputtered when I heard that on the radio. Bush has said he's not going to make a decision (all hail the Decider!) until 2007. Shouldn't this be a pretty high priority? Weren't you supposed to have a plan before we started all of this? He's just coming up with a plan now? Didn't a commission actually come up with a slew of suggestions? Must not like any of those.

Blizzard, Round II

Ooh, boy! More snow on the way:

There could be between 1 and 2 feet of snow across the Front Range mountains and foothills by early Friday morning. Up to 30 inches could fall in the foothills of Boulder and Jefferson County.

The heaviest amounts of snow are expected to be in the areas west of I-25.

Well, that's us. West of I-25. We got (officially) 25" in the last snowstorm, which is still hanging around. We finally are dug out from the enormous drifts, the dogs have mashed down paths in the backyard so they can pee...and more snow is on the way. A lot more.

Snowfall rates could get up to 2 inches per hour, especially in the foothills along the Front Range. The first wave of the storm will hit the Front Range and I-25 urban corridor. A stronger round of heavy snow is possible for all of northeast and north-central Colorado late Friday into Saturday morning.

The second wave could bring stronger winds and blizzard conditions over the northeastern plains.

The metro area could get 10 to 18 inches of snow by Friday morning because of the storm. Kathy says the foothills could expect 15 to 30 inches and the mountain areas 12 to 24 inches.

Well, I still have enough chocolate, wine, and movies to hunker down and enjoy the snowstorm. I don't have to drive anywhere for work, we have plenty of food in the house, and there's nothing better than sitting in front of the fire reading a book while it snows and blows and blizzards outside. Whee!

The Adorable Husband is (you guessed it!) on call again. He's also supposed to drop off his car to repair the two broken taillights he got in the last blizzard (someone pressed too hard on the plastic cover and broke them). I'm thinking he should keep his car around and not attempt to drive MY car -- which is much closer to the ground and has much wider, smoother tires -- in the snow. We'll have that conversation in the morning before he leaves! I'll remind him to bring a change of clothes and pack his boots in the car.

Best Wishes for the Holidays

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Io Saturnalia, Happy Chanukah! -- pick your particular holy day and I wish you the best for the season and the new year. Hopefully you spent time with your family and friends, celebrating this lovely time of the year with those who are close to you. Enjoy!

Neither Rain nor Snow

We have high hopes for mail delivery today. We finally dug our way to the mailbox and retrieved the last delivery -- which was either Tuesday (before the snow) or possibly Wednesday morning. Nothing since then.

So much for this 'neither rain nor sleet nor snow...appointed rounds' thing!

Not that I blame them, of course. It took two days for most of us to get out of the driveway! I understand that Fedex is going to do saturday and sunday deliveries in order to make up for the two-day delay form the snowstorm. I'm not sure what the Post Office and UPS are going to do. Although I'm not sure that they would be able to get to the house even if they did go out.

Snow doesn't usually stick around for more than a day or so here in Boulder....Having all this white stuff still on the ground is a bit odd.

Where do people GET these ideas?

I get Archaeology Magazine, because I'm a weird information junkie. They have very approachable and interesting articles on current excavations and historical finds. I think I originally signed up when we went to Egypt (because of the recent articles on KV5 and the Golden Mummies), and I just kept reading it. Anyway, in this month's edition, there is a small sidebar talking about the results of a Gallup poll on science. It says:

49% of Americans do not believe humans evolved over millions of years.
51% of Amerians believe humans and dinosaurs co-existed
85% of Americans think archaeologists study dinosaurs

HALF of Americans don't believe in evolution. HALF of Americans are so ignorant of basic science and history that they think Tyrannosaurs hunted humans.

Of that half, many simply haven't learned anything else. Others have embraced this idea (despite being contrary to every actual fact) because their religion demands that it be true in order to function. The first group? I can sort of understand that. The others? I can't wrap my head around someone who doesn't understand that evolution (change) has occurred and continues to occur in the world.

That last statistic is a bit more understandable-- most people don't really have any great interest in archaeology and paleontology and probably don't differentiate between them.

The Force

Did you know in 2001 that over 500,000 people listed their religion as Jedi (as in Jedi Knight of the Star Wars universe) in censuses around the world. Australia, New Zealand, Canada, UK -- people around the world are writing in "Jedi" when asked for the religious affiliation. Some poeple mistakenly believe that getting a certain number of people claiming a religion will make it "official", but this is not true (according to snopes).

A note from the Australian Bureau of Statistics notes that urging people to put int Jedi on tne 2006 census may result in fines for falsifying info on the census forms. However, this doesn't appear to have stopped people.

In Australia more than 70,000 people declared themselves members of the Jedi in the 2001 census. The Australian Bureau of Statistics issued an official press release in response to media interest on the subject.

Over 53,000 people listed themselves as Jedi in New Zealand. New Zealand has the highest per capita population of reported Jedi in the world, with 1.5% marking "Jedi" as their religion on the census - more than those marking themselves as buddhist or
hindu.

In the UK, they have actually assigned Jedi its own code for reference purposes, since:

"It was confirmed prior to the census that citizens were not liable for a fine in relation to question 10 (on religion).[9] In England and Wales 390,000 people (0.7%) stated their religion as Jedi on their 2001 Census forms, surpassing Sikhism, Judaism, and Buddhism, and making it the fourth largest reported religion in the country."

Pictures at Last

The Adorable Husband did finally manage to get home -- or at least, get the car to the entrance of the culdesac. We don't get plowed, really, so the snow is 3-4' deep in drifts over the road. We officially got 25" in Erie, although we decided in our culdesac that it was closer to 30" after Stu borrowed the snowblower and cleared the sidewalks and driveways. I didn't let him do ours -- the Husband absolutely loves to snowblow. Weird, eh?


It was actually quite lovely outside. I love this kind of weather. And, since the Adorable Husband did get his car back here, I had the camera. SO -- a few pictures:

The paths I had to tromp in the backyard so Rukh could get out and pee. The fence is 4' tall -- and this is after it got warmer and things "sank" a bit. At one point last night, the snow was all the way up to the top of the fence!

Yup, that's actually him, snowblowing the street. One of the people in the neighborhood has a little front-loader, and went around plowing at least a single lane on each of the streets. He just did it because he "likes to help" -- He eventually made it to our culdesac and got a lane to everyone's driveway. We gave him a bottle of wine and a hefty tip, especially since he completely plowed out Cooper's driveway (they are out of town, and her mother lives int he MIL-apartment over the garage. She's disabled and can't shovel, so we were in the process of shovelling her out when the guy in the cat showed up. Very nice.

Submarine Dog

It's still snowing a bit -- and our yard is one smooth, drifted expanse of snow (from the front door to the street, really) and in the backyard, the drifts are 4-5 feet tall.

It's been a bit of a problem getting everyone outside; I've had to shovel the porch off every time and the drifts are taller than the beasts. I let Uulaq outside yesterday afternoon and went back inside to get a hat. When I came out....no Uulaq. Huh?

No, wait -- there she is, bulldozing her way through the snow with only her nose showing. She doesn't hop up over the snow, she just plows through it like a u-boat. Every once in awhile she jumps up to see where she is, then disappears again under the drifts.

Rukh is not quite so excited about it, since he's fuzzless and has a harder time getting around without the horsepower in that rear leg to get him through. Standing in the snow when it's up over your shoulders can't be fun!

The Adorable Husband tried to get home last night (I'm not sure why, some misguided need to shovel the driveway, I think) and wasn't able to get into our streets. The entrance to our development was too deep to drive in (and we don't get plowed at all) and he had to have a few people help him dig out and then headed back to the hospital. He spent hte night there, since if he was called back in, there would be no way to get back, even if he managed to get home. He's going to try again later today, but I think his chances are pretty slim. We're not going anywhere for a few days, I don't think. We can snowblow our own driveway, but there's still a half-mile of winding streets tht are utterly drifted over.

But we have plenty of chocolate, plenty of wine, and plenty of movies -- fun!

BTW -- I would have taken cool pictures of the snow, but the Adorable Husband has the camera in his car. Hopefully he took a few.

Snow! Snow! Snow!

Well, we officially have a blizzard warning here in snowy Colorado -- and looking out at the horizontal snow and drifts up over my front steps, it very well may be one.

The street is even with the curbs, and the snow is piling up about 2-3" an hour, with 2' expected. Whoopee! We have plenty of chocolate, movies, and popcorn to keep us amused while we're snowed in. Yeah!

I'm very, very glad that I don't have to drive anywhere to work. The Adorable Husband got in this morning before it got really bad, but he's going to have a fun drive home this evening, if things progress the way the weather forecast suggests they will.

Chemo, Round Two

Back up to the vet today for a second round of chemo for the beast yesterday. They couldn't do it last week, because his white count was far too low. Much better this time, and they did the second dose of Carboplatin. He wooed everyone at the office with his charming ways, and slept through most of the treatment. What a ham.

He seems to be doing pretty well today -- a little woofly, perhaps, but we've got him on anti-nausea drugs prophylactically. Hopefully that will forestall any barfing. Based on our experience last time, he should be back and bouncing around in a day or so. Yeah, Rukh!

Secret Services

Secret service protection for ex-presidents was begun in the 60s, after the assassination of JFK. It was originally set up for lifetime security for ex-presidents. But in 1994, Congress amended the rule to offer only 10 years of protection to ex-presidents. The change became effective in 1997, so the Shrub is the first president to leave office under this rule.

So of course, there are some murmurings that this is not adequate and that the rule needs to be changed for the Shrub, because he faces a higher level of threats that previous presidents. Do note, though, that a Republican congress changed the law, and enacted it. But, a democrat was in office then, of course.

They're probably right that Bush needs more/better protection. He is really not well-liked at all. Specific threats are a valid reason to extend protection.

Former Secret Service agent Chuck Vance, who is a former son-in-law of
former President Ford, said Bush's post-presidency will include a variety of
challenges.

"One thing is, he is a relatively young man, and young men are more active
and always on the road," said Vance, now a security consultant in Virginia.
"That takes a lot of manpower and a lot of team effort."

And, Vance noted, Bush will be a target.

"He is the only president that invaded a country without provocation and
without it being started by the other side. I think he has gained a lot of
enmity. ... There are a lot of people who resent this president, both externally
and internally, some of whom have lost sons and daughters and had people injured
in the war in Iraq," he said.

Looks like some things are coming home to roost. And could they have used the word "former' more often in that first sentence?

Xmas Gambling

My TUSC Christmas party was, as usual, a BLAST. Nearly everyone in the office made it (a rarity when so many people travel all the time) and we had a fabulous time. Of course, I was out shopping for a dress earler in the day, because I bought a really cute, dressy outfit online about a week ago, but wasn't really happy with it. Besides, when else are you going to wear red velvet?

Good food, fabulous company -- and we got to gamble with fake money to our hearts content. I lost every penny of my fake money, but the Adorable Husband did quite well. Well al have fun, but it's funny how competitive we get. The Texas Hold-em table got pretty rowdy!

Really good, geeky presents, too -- backup drives, ipods, gps trackers. We really ought to wear out propeller beanies to the party. We are such nerds.

Nickels and Pennies

Well, here's an argument for getting rid of smaller coins, if I ever heard one. With the current market for metals, a penny is actually worth about 1.12 cents of materials, and a nickel is worth about 6.99 cents. They're worth more as melted ingots than as coins.

As a result

U.S. Mint officials said Wednesday they were putting into place rules prohibiting the melting down of 1-cent and 5-cent coins, with a penalty of up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000 for people convicted of violating the rule.

I have a feeling that's not going to stop anyone, and how would they know that any specific metal ingot of zinc or nickel or copper came from melted coins? And I'm rather stuck on a simple question: why not make all coins from some cheapo metal (aluminum?) so that they don't have to worry about the value of the metal in the coin being related to the face value.

Coins are just placeholders for "real" currency, anyways -- like dollar bills represent a specific value. Bills are just paper, why can't coins be just metal? They may have at one time been actual currency amounts, but perhaps it's time we dispense with that particular charade.

HD Reality

Finally! After three tries, several crabby phonecalls, and quite a bit of work on the part of the Adorable Husband, we have HD cable in the theater.

The first attempt, they gave us a window of four hours (8-12), called at 11:30 to tell us they were running about two hours late. We had a ton fo things to do, so we rescheduled. Not knowing at the time, of course, that we'd wait 3-4 weeks for an appointment.

Second appointment comes around and the two guys who come are supremely puzzled by the fact that the current cables are buried in the walls and unable to grasp that we want them to run four NEW wires into the basement. HD requires that each box have it's own home-run wire to the new dish, no switching, so the wiring we have is not adequate). They talk about using the existing wiring for the two downstairs tvs and then running wire all the way around the house, in two directions, to reach the other two. Um...no. We have a centralized cable "box" downstairs that we want all the tvs to run from. They paced around the house, hemming and hawing, and when they realized they'd have to actually pull new wire down through the porch....they told us to reschedule and left.

The Adorable Husband was FURIOUS. They basically decided that it was too hard to pull the wires and told him on the phone that he'd have to do the pulling through the deck, since they wouldn't pull up any boards to do it. Apparenlty they didn't even LOOK at the porch, since it took the husband about fifteen minutes to get the cable through. I didn't hear his conversation with the DirecTV people, but they rescheduled the appointment to be back in two days.

So a new guy shows up, having been briefed in detail about the goat-rodeo that is our installation, and he does it -- perfectly. Two hours, and he pulled four new cables, put up a new dish, hid all the wires, tested everything. Voila! HD picture on the big screen.

Only three months after we asked for it the first time. I've been incredibly happy with DirecTV on a day-to-day basis, but the intalls and upgrades have been painful. We did make sure to call and compliment them on the final appointment. I think they ought to be giving us stuff for free, but at this point, I'm just glad everything works.

No HD tv for months, what a stupid first-world kind of problem, eh?

Electronic Mozart

In honor of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 250th birthday, his musical works are now available online...for free. All of it. Piano works, symphonies, concertos, etc.

The website draws from the original Neue Mozart Ausgabe paper version
developed since 1954 by internationally renowned musicologists and comprising
over 125 booklets of sheet music, whose origin has been painstakingly authenticated, the Salzburg foundation said.

The "Digital Mozart Edition" (DME) website -- -- features over 600 works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, separated into ten categories, from concertos for orchestra to chamber music and pieces for piano.

The site is based on Salzburg, and in the first 12 hours had over 400,000 hits. It can be a bit slow, and sometimes switches between German and English for no reason, but...yeah!

Only in Tecas

At first, I thought this was a joke. It's not. This is definitely a serious issue that needs to be addressed by the Texas legislature:

Rep. Edmund Kuempel, a Seguin Republican, has filed a bill for the 2007
legislative session that would allow legally blind hunters to use a laser sight,
or lighted pointing instrument. The devices are forbidden for sighted hunters.

Keep in mind that blind hunters have always been able to hunt in Texas. They have to have a sighted hunter along. This really only changes their ability to use a laser sight to assist their "spotter" in helping them aim. About fifteen states and canada allow blind hunters, with appropriate assistance, to hunt.

Having Children

Ok, I found this on one of the lists I frequent and it had me laughing like a hyena.

Mess Test - Smear peanut butter on the sofa and curtains. Place a fish stick behind the couch and leave it there all summer.

Toy Test - Obtain a 55 gallon box of Legos (you may substitute roofing tacks if you wish). Have a friend spread them all over the house. Put on a blindfold and take off shoes. Try to walk to the bathroom or kitchen. Do not scream because this would wake a child at night.

Grocery Store Test - Borrow one or two small animals (goats are best) and take them with you as you shop. Always keep them in sight and pay for anything they eat or damage.

Dressing Test - Obtain one large, unhappy, live octopus. Stuff into a small net bag making sure that all the arms stay inside.

Feeding Test - Obtain a large plastic milk jug. Fill halfway with water. Suspend from the ceiling with a cord. Start the jug swinging. Try to insert spoonfuls of soggy cereal into the mouth of the jug, while pretending to be an airplane. Now dump the contents of the jug on the floor.

Night Test - Prepare by obtaining a small cloth bag and fill it with 8-12 pounds of sand. Soak it thoroughly in water. At 3:00pm, begin to waltz and hum with the bag until 9:00pm. Lay down your bag and set your alarm for 10:00pm. Get up, pick up your bag, and sing every song you have ever heard. Make up about a dozen more and sing these too until 4:00am. Set alarm for 5:00am. Get up and make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.

Ingenuity Test - Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and pot of paint, turn it into an alligator. Now take a toilet paper tube and turn it into an attractive Christmas candle. Use only scotch tape and a piece of foil. Last, take a milk carton, a ping-pong ball, and an empty box of Cocoa Puffs. Make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower.

Automobile Test - Forget the BMW and buy a station wagon. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there. Get a dime. Stick it into the CD player. Take a family-size package of chocolate chip cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Run a rake along both side of the car.

Final Assignment - Find a couple who already has a small child. Lecture them on how they can improve their discipline, patience, tolerance, and toilet training and child’s table manners. Suggest many ways they can improve. Emphasize to them that they should never allow their children to run wild. Enjoy this experience. It will be the last time you will have all the answers.

No Chemo Today

We all headed up to Vet Specialists today for Rukh's second chemo appointment, and the bloodwork showed that his white count is simply too low to do another dose. They tested it three times, just to sure it wasn't a glitch (which leads me to wonder just how low was it?) and we have to reschedule for next Tuesday instead.

Rukh's been doing really well, although a bit tired. He's been out walking, and seems pretty dang perky. But his white count is so low that we've got him on full-time antibiotics. This isn't really a sign that the chemo is working -- just that the side-effect of chemo (depressing the immune system) is certainly occuring.

It's all a crap shoot anyways. We're just playing the numbers -- hoping that we catch any incipient tumor cells now with the chemo. There may not be any cancer cells at all (although this is unlikely) -- even if we see clear xrays at his next appointment, it doesn't mean that there either were or weren't cancerous cells in his lungs, just that we dont' see them now

So, a week's reprieve on the projecto-barfing. At least he only feels sick for a day or so, if his attitude and behavior are any indication. Grossly nauseous for about a day, then almost back to normal.

Still no hair on his butt, though.