29 August 07 - 14:14Robert Robot - Mechanical Man

I was reading an email from a friend about nostalgic dreams and for whatever reason the email made me remember Robert.  Robert the robot that is.  This toy was advertised on television when I was a kid and my best friend, Steve, (an only child with a doting grandmother) who used to get tons more stuff for Christmas than I did, got one.

By the standards of the day this robot was a marvel.  Robert required absolutely no batteries, stood probably a foot tall and had a steel cable coming out his back to a hand crank device with a trigger.  There was also a crank on his back.

The crank on the hand operated "remote" cranked the robot around with power to the wheels and the hand trigger steered him.  Crank the other way and he would go backwards.  As you can imagine, steering and moving was a challenge, but it was extremely interesting for a grade school age kid who only saw robots in science fiction movies (which were big in that time).  There was a robot Gorp or Gort or something like that in a movie, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" that was old enough to make the late show.  Robert was surely a close cousin.

I think, if I remember right, that his eyes were probably lit with sparks from a flint on a rough wheel, a common method of the day.  This would have been run by the remote crank, I think.  Heck, what do I remember, this was a long time ago.  He did make a lot of noise when he was cranked up.  

Oh, yes, the second crank.  Robert had a phonograph record inside his body which played when you turned the crank.  In a voice that was mechanical and probably female he said, "I am Rober Robot, mechanical man.  Drive me and steer me wherever you can."

I still say that sometimes.  It's funny what you remember.

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28 August 07 - 23:23I like 'em hot

One man's journey (It's a joke, son)
 
When I was 14, I hoped that one day I would have a girlfriend ...
 
When I was 16 I got a girlfriend, but there was no passion, so I  decided I needed a passionate girl with a zest for life.
 
In college at age 18, I dated a passionate girl, but she was too emotional. Everything was an emergency; she was a drama queen, cried all the time and threatened suicide. So I decided I needed a girl with stability.
 
When I was 25 I found a very stable girl but she was boring. She was totally predictable and never got excited about anything.  Life became so dull that I decided that I needed a girl with some excitement.
 
When I was 28 I found an exciting girl, but I couldn't keep up with her.  She rushed from one thing to another, never settling on anything. She did mad impetuous things and made me miserable as often as happy. She was great fun initially and very energetic, but directionless.
 
So I decided to find a girl with some real ambition.
 
When I turned 31, I found a smart ambitious girl with her feet planted firmly on the ground and married her.

She was so ambitious, in fact, that she divorced me and took everything I owned.
 
I am now older and wiser and looking for a girl with large hooters.

(more)

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27 August 07 - 08:08Drugs might help once I understand the need

THIS IS A JOKE, SON

One day a man walks into Seligman's pharmacy and asks for the woman who owns the place by name, he must speak to Martha.  He is assured that any of the pharmacists can help, but he insists that only Martha will do.

Summoned by her helpers, Martha comes out and the man asks to speak to her in private.  Having gone this far to accomodate the gentleman, she directs him to her private office in the back of the store.

Once in the office, the two are seated across the desk and Martha asks the gentleman what it is she can do for him that requires such great secrecy.

"I want a poison to kill my wife." the man states clearly and slowly.  "Something that cannot be traced or detected."
 
Martha's eyes got big and she exclaimed, "I can't believe you just asked me that.  Not only can't I give you a prescription to kill your wife, it's against the law!  It's immoral, and I can't believe you are asking me this.  In fact, I could lose my license just for not turning you in! And even then, they could still throw both of us in jail just for talking like this! Absolutely not! Are you crazy?"

"Perhaps if I show you a picture of my wife?" the man asked.  "I think once you see her you will understand.

You are Martha Seligman, aren't you?"

"You know that already," exclaimed the pharmacist.

With that the man pulled out a picture of his wife in bed with Martha's husband.
 
Martha studied the picture for a moment and replied, "Well now. That's different. You didn't tell me you had a prescription."

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26 August 07 - 08:08The fireman and the little girl

This is a joke, with a very nice picture made by me.  Here goes....

Little girls are pretty smart.

A fireman is polishing his fire engine outside the fire station when he notices a little girl next door in a little red cart with little ladders hung on the side and a garden hose tightly coiled in the middle.

The little girl is wearing a fireman's helmet and has the cart tied to a dog and a cat. The fire-fighter walks over to take a closer look.

"That's a lovely fire engine," he says admiringly.

"Thanks," says the little girl. The fireman looks closer and notices the little girl has tied one of the cart's strings to the dog's collar and one to the cat's testicles.

'Little colleague,' says the fire-fighter, "I don't want to tell you how to run your fire engine, but if you were to tie that rope around the cat's collar, I think you could probably go a lot faster."

The little girl pauses for a moment, looks at the wagon, at the dog and at the cat, then shyly looks into the fireman's eyes and says,  "You're probably right, but then I wouldn't have a siren, would I?"

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25 August 07 - 09:09College living

We have been readying the daughter living situation for the last couple of weeks. She goes to school in Austin, TX and there is a serious mismatch in housing there. I believe this is the college for her, but finding adequate housing has been a challenge (that is what I used to call problem, but now it is called challenge).

The big problem is trying to find a location where people are focused on studying, not partying. The last place the daughter was at was very nice, was shared with two or three other girls, and was a nightmare (although she probably didn't think so). The apartment was very nice, not too old, and had a swimming pool and covered parking. The problem was that thoughtless or uncaring college students who did not live at the apartment complex broke in every weekend to have a pool party and left a big mess after the big bash including big noise. I didn't think this was a good deal and it cost a lot of money.

Enter the condo.

I figured it would be a good idea to buy a condo and put the daughter in it on her own since the imparting of college knowledge was the intent of being in this place in the first place. The idea was sound, but the result was a lot like the movie "The Money Pit."

When the wife (mother) and the daughter went to ready the new apartment a nasty storm emphasized suspected existing problems with drainage at the condo. Water flowed in from a window that was scheduled to be replaced and the storm actually proved to be a blessing as it proved out several drainage issues we had been trying to track down.

Unfortunately the wife (mother) and daughter have had to weather the storm. Fortunately a new window is now in place and other improvements have been implemented to make the location the ideal that it was intended to be. For once, I would like one of these things to be easy.....

Oh, well.....

Later...

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23 August 07 - 22:44Dashing through the snow

When we were this age we called ourselves "we three boys."  My brothers and myself were about two years apart in age and exactly two years apart in school.

That's me on the right, my brother Charles in the middle and Wendell on the left.  I would guess it was about 1961-62 so I would have been in the fourth grade and Wendell in kindergarten (with Miss Shaw) which would put Charles directly in the middle at second grade.  This would have been a treat for us.  A blast from the past. A chance to live history.

All three of us grew up reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder "Little House" series of books.  We did not see this on television, we read the books which we checked out from either the school or city library.  The books were also read to us in the school and the woman herself, Laura, was alive until I entered the first grade in 1957.  In the later books of the series when Laura was dating Almonzo Wilder on the banks of Silver Lake (no longer there) near DeSmet, South Dakota they would go on dates in a sleigh during the winter.  Of course, we knew that Santa drove a sleigh, and now, here we are in a sleigh driven by a high school age friend of the family.  That would be Larry Strathe (I think) driving the Sleigh.

I have always said that I did not grow up on a farm, but grew up all around them.  This was one of the days on a farm with family friends.  We also bought a steer from these folks (Larry's parents) which ended up in our freezer and eventually on my dinner plate.  I never had a problem understanding the connection between food and animals.  I even remember my dad taking us out to meet the meat!!

Anyway, this was a ride in the snow by the three Armstrong boys.  I always liked riding horses as well, although I never liked getting my foot stepped on, which also was an occurance.  I think it only happens when you screw up, so I won't dwell on it.

Later!!

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22 August 07 - 23:22More about our trade partner China

Here you see two cars.  The one on the left is a Chevy SparK and the one on the right is a Chery QQ.  For all I know QQ means Spark in Chinese.  The car shown as made by the Chinese is a blatent ripoff of the General Motors car.  The Chevy car is, I believe, a venture with their Daewoo division in Korea.  The Chery QQ car is a stolen design by Chery from Chevy.

Amazing as it may seem, the doors from these cars are interchangeable.  The similarity in look is no coincidence.  The Chinese have active programs to steal designs from other companies.  It is their way.  They have absolutely no respect for intellectual property.  They steal software without a second thought.  No need to reverse engineer here, just copy and crack it.  A couple of hours work for a hacker on most software, a couple of days on the complicated stuff.  Stealing music is even easier.  Books?  These folks had Harry Potter translated to Chinese and on the net in hours.  They did it with teams of children.  It's part of their culture to steal from the rest of the world.

The cars take a bit more time and a real team approach.  From what I have read they start with spies at trade shows and work with samples as soon as they can buy one.

It is no coincidence that the doors of a Chevy fit a Chery.  Kinda makes you wonder if they simply mispelled the logo, eh?

By the way, Square Sponge Bob Pants is the latest toy (actually book, I think) to have lead poisoning potential and the US company who was screwed by the Chinese have recalled a bunch.  Ya know, how do you spell crook in Chinese?  These folks are unbelievable.

More later, FYI, I really hate unethical people.

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21 August 07 - 22:20Hurricanes are never good

Hurricanes are never good.  The best hurricane is one that goes somewhere else or never develops.  Hurricane Dean was by some estimations up to a category 5 hurricane.  I even saw reports that it was one of the 10 strongest hurricanes in history (maybe, you know).  But here is the rest of the story.

Hurricane Dean managed to pass through the most sparsely poplulated areas of the Yucatan peninsula.  That has slowed the hurricane to a snails pace of increasing to a Category 2 from it's current Category 1 status and then degrading to a tropical storm shortly after making landfall in Mexico.  Extra good news for those of us in the USA and good news for those folks in the resorts on the peninsula.

I hope the storm is reduce to a much needed rain in central Mexico.  Nobody needs a hurricane.

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21 August 07 - 09:09Advantages of being Old

This has been making the rounds.  I am starting to identify with this kind of thing.

PERKS OF BEING OLD

1. Kidnappers are not very interested in you.
2. In a hostage situation you are likely to be released first.
3. No one expects you to run--anywhere.
4. You sing along with elevator music.
5. People no longer view you as a hypochondriac.
6. There is nothing left to learn the hard way.
7. Things you buy now won't wear out.
8. You can eat dinner at 4 PM if you want to.
9. You can live without sex but not your glasses.
10. You get into heated arguments about pension plans.
11. You no longer think of speed limits as a challenge.
12. You quit trying to hold your gas in no matter who walks into the room.
13. People call at 9 PM and ask, Did I wake you????
14. Your eyes won't get much worse.
15. Your investment in health insurance is finally beginning to payoff.
16. Your joints are more accurate meteorologists than the national weather service.
17. Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can't remember them either.
18. Your supply of brain cells are finally down to manageable size.
19. You can't remember who sent you this list .
20. There was another reason, but I forgot what it was.

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19 August 07 - 21:57More stealing from America - Chinese Style

This month my Popular Science has a very interesting article featured on the cover. It is titled meet the iClone, but it is really an article which more encompasses one of my pet peeves, outsourcing for the wrong reasons with the wrong people. This article, by Dan Koeppel actually touches on the more broad issues of dealing with China in the marketplace and the ethics (or lack therof) of Chinese businessmen.

Over the years as a manufacturing engineer it became obvious I was going to have to suggest outsourcing some of the components in my products overseas. Depending on where I was working at the time there were a variety of ways to do this. Sometimes there were corporate people designated to help with this or, if there weren't any internal folks there were brokers or traders who could help get the job done.

My approach was one of great trepidation when it came to doing this type of project. I did not trust the Chinese or for that matter the Taiwanese with my products. I used the mushroom method to counter this lack of trust. I only presented them with individual part drawings, I made sure the association with the final product was not evident, and kept the division I worked in a secret rhough the shield of the corporate helper or broker.

I can sum it up this way. I used to work for a guy who took the MBA series of courses and came away with the usual bag of tools. In that MBA bag was the win-win concept. I personally saw this foreign trade situation as the greed-greed situation.

We, the American companies, were greedy to get cheap Chinese parts to make more money with relatively low effort. The Chinese are greedy to the point where they will clone our products and sell them either as different products or sometimes as counterfeits.

Meet the iClone, indeed. It's easy to get screwed by Chinese businessmen and bad food for doggies and baby killing paint are only the tip of the iceberg.

Pick up your own copy of Pop Sci if you are interested it is more verbose than this link. [Pop Sci Link]

More on this from me, later.

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17 August 07 - 09:09Sandra wants to go to Mars

Sandra wanted to know why we couldn't send a person to Mars when we send up the little craft that drive around on the planet.  She even suggested a little person. I was thinking, perhaps a Hobbit.

Here is what I have found out.  The average person requires about 2000 calories a day to survive and about 8 glasses or 4 pounds of water.  Since a Big Mac is about 500 calories and weights about a half a pound we would need four Big Macs per day and that would be an additional two pounds of supplies per day.  That total is 6 pounds per day.  Plus a male Hobbit who would weigh about 100 pounds. 

The trip would take about 9 months or 18 months for the round trip.  That is about 550 days if you allow a day or two on Mars to empty the septic tank and pick up a few rocks.  That means Hobbit, food and water would be about 6 X 550 + 100 pounds which is 3,400 pound.  Technical data on the MER is

Height: 1.5m or 4.9 ft

Width: 2.3m or 7.5 ft

Length: 1.6m or 5.2 ft

Mass: 174 kg or 384 lb

That means the person would require about 10 times the weight at launch if you add in neccesities like magazines, toilet paper, toothbrush, inflatable friend, astronaut diapers, and the like.  And don't forget, we leave the little cars up there.  We would have to send along an extra rocket to bring our Hobbit friend back.  Rockets weight a lot more than a closet full of Big Macs.

I think this sorta answers the questiion, it was actually interesting to look into some of this stuff.  It would have been even better if I had not accidently deleted my work the first time.

Later.

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16 August 07 - 09:09I stumbled on this one

When I was looking around to find related material for the duct tape knuckleskull, I was thinking I would find situations where similar "not so bright" wannabe robbers would have made similar mistakes.

Here we see an outtake from the DeKalb, Illinois police page, apparently designed to help solve unsolved crimes.  I think DeKalb is a pretty nice place, its in Illinois, and I like Illinois.  They bill themselves as "City of DeKalb, an urban community in a rural setting..."

Here is a quote from the aforementioned page:

"ARMED ROBBERY - July 28, 2006 - An armed robbery occurred in the 600 block of N. 11th Street at about 2249 hours. 

The victim was delivering pizza to a residence when the suspect walked up from the side of the house and displayed a pistol.  The suspect told the victim to put the food down and give him his money. 

The suspect is described as a male/white, about 508 to 510, in his late teens or early 20s, with an average build.  The suspect was wearing a dark white (T-shirt) with an orange insignia across the front." [link] 

Click on the link if you like and scroll down to the portion of the page quoted.

I don't have any real trouble with the concept of a police drawing, but how the heck are you going to identify this guy from the picture?  He looks like a red bandana with eyeballs.  Oh, yea, a T-shirt with a fire insignia on it.

See how well this works for the guy doing this instead of duct tape.  As long as he doesn't go out with his hat on backwards wearing a bandana over his face and a fire emblom T-shirt, he is NOT going to be identified from this picture.

I thank the DeKalb police department for helping me make my point with the duct tape being a poor choice of disguise.

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15 August 07 - 09:09In life, we have choices

In life we all have choices.  Some people choose to rob liquor stores when they need extra cash and some don't.  If you are like me, you choose not to rob liquor stores.

Let's assume for a moment we are going to make a bad choice and start robbing.  What should we wear?  Do we want to go with the tried and true?

Robbers wear all kinds of things to disguise themselves, for example, halloween masks, masks that look like presidents, nylon stockings (not so much since panty hose), ski masks, handkerchieves, and now, . . . duct tape.

Pardon me all to hell, but isn't the idea of a disguise to make you hard to identify?  If you are wearing a mask, you can pull it off as you run away and then blend in with the crowd.  The second method (Method B) would not lend itself to this type of change in plans.

Above we have two methods of hiding your identity while holding up a liquor store.  Of method A and method B which looks more practical?  In the case of method B the robber was captured in the parking lot with the two rolls of coins he had just robbed in addition to the two rolls of duct tape on his face.  Still he said he didn't do it.  It won't work.  There weren't that many guys walking by with duct tape on their face.

The person shown on the left, method B, looks far more dignified and could move easily from a liquor store robbery to a jewelry store.  The well styled head covering would look stylish with a suit, as well as casual clothes.

The man on the right just looks stupid, and think how its going to feel when he takes the tape off...

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14 August 07 - 20:20I remember this

Every so often someone sends me somthing like this.  I like remembering these types of things.   If you don't want to read more of the same, skip this.

DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN...?

• All the girls had ugly gym uniforms?   (So did the boys.)
• It took five minutes for the TV warm up? (The tubes had to get hot.)
• Nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids got home from school?
• Nobody owned a purebred dog?  (My dog Linny was half cocker and half lab)
• When a quarter was a decent allowance?  (I also put 5 cents in the plate from my 25) 
• You'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny?  (Nope, never did that.  Clean in plain view?  OK.)
• Your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces?  (Yup one for each leg, three pieces would have been trouble.)
• All your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had their hair done every day and wore high heels?  (Sportcoats, too.)
• You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking, all for free, every time?   And you didn't pay for air? And, you got trading stamps to boot?  (At Kenny's Gulf we had to make first contact in 30 seconds.)
• Laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box? (Cereal boxes, too,)
• It was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents?  (Yup.) 
• They threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed. . . and they did? (All the time.  Even the rich kids.)
• When a 57 Chevy was everyone's dream car...to cruise, peel out, lay rubber or watch submarine races, and people went steady?  (Been there, done that.  Mine was a station wagon.) 
• No one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked?  (The Chevies started without keys if you took the key out in the on position.) 
• Lying on your back in the grass with your friends and saying things like, "That cloud looks like a ......... " (Maybe.)  
• And playing baseball with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game?  (Yup, and we made up rules if we had to.)
• When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited the student at home?  (Happened a couple of times.  What happened in the office was no picnic, either.) 
• Basically we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat!  But we survived because their love was greater than the threat.  (Yup!!) 

Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say, "Yeah, I remember that"?

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13 August 07 - 21:18Be all that you can be

Inner Strength

If you can start the day without caffeine,

If you can get going without pep pills,

If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,

If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,

If you can eat the same food everyday and be grateful for it,

If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,

If you can take criticism and blame without resentment

If you can ignore a friend's limited education and never correct him,

If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend,

If you can conquer tension without medical help,

If you can relax without liquor,

If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
.
.
.
.
..Then You Are Probably The Family Dog!

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11 August 07 - 10:23Bear in the Bare

There is a really big problem with bears in Alaska.  I can relate to this since I was once camping in Canada which is very close to Alaska and a bear ate our leftovers while we were sleeping.  Here is the lowdown from Alaska......

In light of the rising frequency of human/grizzly bear encounters, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has issued the following advisory to hikers, hunters, and fishermen while in the field:

It is strongly advised that outdoorsmen wear noisy little bells on their clothing so as not to startle grizzly bears that aren't expecting outdoorsmen to be walking in their habitat. It is also  strongly advised that outdoorsmen carry non-lethal pepperspray with them in case of an encounter with a grizzly.  The Department of Natural Resources for Alaska states it is a good idea to watch out for fresh signs of bear activity.

Outdoorsmen should be able to recognize the difference between black bear poop and grizzly bear poop:

Black bear poop is small, contains lots of berries, and, occasionally, squirrel fur.

Grizzly bear poop is large, has little bells in it, and smells like pepperspray.

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10 August 07 - 20:16I wanna git mo Gitmo

Dateline WASHINGTON (CNN) (8.10.2007) - "The Supreme Court refused to block the pending transfer of an accused terrorist held by the U.S. military, despite his fears of being tortured if he is sent back to his home country of Algeria.
Ahmed Belbacha has. . . . tried to keep himself detained [at Gitmo] because . . . he fears being tortured . . . if he goes home."

End of quote.

You read it right.  The Pentagon is trying to release detainees from Guantanamo and this guy doesn't want to go.  He claims that he could be tortured in his home country of Algeria.   Wi-i-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-p.  Wait a minute, I thought we were being accused of being very bad and mean with prisoners at Guantanamo.  Inhumane, even, comes to mind.  Now this Belbacha guy wants to stay there because things could be worse at home?

He says that the government in Algeria takes the fact that the US has detained him seriously.  That's a good thing.  Bad for him, maybe, but good for us.  If it is bad for him to go home and be a terrorist, at least we don't have to worry about that.  But what about Ahmed?

He is a waiter who fled to England to escape the radicals (I am thinking in Algeria) and damned if he wasn't turned in as a terrorist when he later traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan (probably to further get away from radicals) and bounty hunters singled him out, framed him as a terrorist, and got big bucks for putting him away.  Oh, yeah.  I read he was a real good waiter in England and got a big tip once.  Even more reason to not send him back home, I guess.  I suspect we should get him back to work as a waiter. 

Can anyone spell delusion?

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09 August 07 - 22:33A big deal - Misleading the public

This little piece of news demonstrates one of my pet peeves with "studies."

Here's a quote for you from Fox News .

"Researchers tracked the suicide rates for 3,527 Swedish women with breast implants ... there were 175 suicide-related deaths for women with breast implants compared to the 133.4 average for a group of women that size."

Here is another report from Kansas City .

"Women who receive implants for breast enhancement are three times more likely to commit suicide, according to a new report that offered a sobering view of an increasingly popular surgery."

Can this be the same news?

The second statement is flatly incorrect. The difference between 133.4 and 174 is 41.6 to the favor of dead women with enhanced breasts. For the non-mathemetical of you out there (such as those from the newssource for the Kansas newspaper) the increase from 133.4 of 41.6 is 31% not three times which would be 300%.

Here is my gripe, first off the writer of the second article cannot do middle school math and should not be allowed to cover technical articles based on that fact alone. Second, either article implies that the implant somehow causes the suicide and the second article almost declares that "non-fact."

Why would women with enhanced breasts be driven to suicide? Frustration with the extra expense of large brassieres? Unable to carry the weight on their shoulders? Infiltration of saline solution into their brain?

The most likely cause is that the type of person who is likely to get breast implants is also the type of person who is more likely to kill themself.

The scientifically illiterate media reports this type of thing all the time. This is probably the worst I have seen, but in many cases cause and effect is implied or stated where there is none. Statistical studies do not reveal cause and effect. Only reasoning or controlled studies can do that.

So for those of you reading this with artificially enlarged chesticles, the implants are not going to make you kill yourself, leave them in there.

Please.

By the way, the woman in the picture was theoretically "saved" by her implants in an accident situation. The jury is still out on the benefits of implants.

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08 August 07 - 22:46A crook is a crook

I am puzzled by the article I just read. In the article which was in the Chicago Tribune story [article]. Criminals are complaining that while living in this country illegally, they are getting sore backs and low pay. Now they are upset that the government of our country is going to crack down on them so the might have to move back to the country they came from.

A good idea, eh? No sore backs and low pay in Mexico.

These crooks are rallying in the streets!! They are here illegally, working at jobs on the sly, and they are complaining? Do these folks forget that they are here because they wanted a "better life" and forgot to do it legally? They wanted to steal it. They want to work the system in their favor.

What on earth is wrong with this picture.And legal non-citizens as well as legal immigrants are concerned that there will be fallout causing them trouble?

I am sure the trouble has nothing to do with turning their back on the problem or even helping out a friend who happened to be illegal.

That last statement probably wasn't fair, but it is time for these people to go home. They have come to a foreign country by illegal means. They may have good reasons for personal gain they did not inherit or merit, but so do many the guys that steal and rob in more ordinary ways when life is tough.

Sometimes it is hard to look at the big picture when the little folks are getting stomped, but we cannot absorb every sad and sorry person that needs a better life.

Period.

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07 August 07 - 23:51Summer - Finally

Finally Dallas gets its summer.  It has been rainy beyond anything I have seen in Dallas since I first moved here in 1985.

I remember moving to Dallas, living for a year in a rented house and finally moving to a home in Rowlett, TX with my wife and son.  It took two years to get the grass growing in the back yard and part of the problem was dryness.  I remember crabbing about the lack of rain in June and my neighbor told me that I should not expect rain in June in Dallas.  Maybe a little bit, but not much.

I even remember the day I walked back to my car in the parking lot at Brookshire's Grocery which was the main grocery store in Rowlett when I lived there and my unopened can of Dr. Pepper had exploded from the heat.  Not a chance this year until maybe now.

My thermometer actually read three figures for temperature this week for the first time.  After literally months of rain, I feel like I am in Dallas again.  Maybe I can revive the lawn now after the "drought" we have been suffering.  In Texas, I have found that drought means poor water management as much as it means what you think it means.  They cry wolf so much it is hard to believe them.  The city of Plano does not understand it is in the business of managing provision of water, not in the business of water management.  They definately do not have a profit motive.

Anyway, thank you for arriving, Summer!!

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04 August 07 - 13:55Mad cow

Here is some interesting news I ran across from last year (2006) [article]. Four consumer groups are upset that the USDA is taking too long to set up a nationwide animal tracking system.

According to Carol Tucker of the Consumer Federation of America, “The U.S. government has no greater capacity to trace a "mad cow" back to its origins . . . than it did on Dec. 23, 2003,”   She is referring to the 2003 discovery of a dairy cow in Washington state that tested positive for mad cow disease.  At that time the USDA promised an animal identification system which would allow USDA officials to trace the home farm, the herdmates, and the all round general living habits of a suspect animal within 48 hours of a disease outbreak.

This amazing system promised by the USDA is expected to begin in January 2009.  Now, is it just me, or do others find it amazing that any branch in our government thinks they will be able to track a cow to where it was born, who it associated with, and possibly what it ate, but they are unable to locate and deal with 15 million illegal aliens wandering around our country.

If the USDA pulls this off, we need to put them in charge of homeland security.  Of course, the USDA has an advantage, the American Civil Liberties Union has still not been working to make it illegal to profile a cow.  That is a job for the other guys, the animal rights activists.  They should get on it right away to make it illegal to do a background check on a cow without sufficient effort expended to ensure that the cow's rights are not violated.

Later.

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03 August 07 - 22:42The Original Submarine

It's New York Harbor, just down the road from where the World Trade Towers were hit by terrorists and this submarine contraption is spotted putzing around the harbor. Following the submarine thingy were two men in a rubber raft.

The police zipped out and checked things out only to find that the gadget that appeared to be so dangerous was a recently built model of "The Turtle" which was a revolutionary Revolutionary War submarine.

The original Turtle was supposed to use a drill and an explosive charge to sink a British warship, it actually didn't sink anything.  The charge went off harmlessly, probably not even attached to the ship. 

This Turtle contained Duke Riley, a 35-year-old New Yorker closely followed by two buddies in a rubber raft. They would be Michael Cushing and Jesse Bushnell of Rhode Island. The three were actually spotted very close to the Queen Elizabeth II Ocean Liner. It appears the would be terrorists will get to go home after a very interesting day.

Jesse is 18 years old and indicated to police that he is a descendant of David Bushnell who put together the original Turtle in the 1770's.

Finally a news article with a happy ending.

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01 August 07 - 23:21Yikes

Several weeks ago I was leaving the airport in Minneapolis and headed the wrong way. Usually I would not need to go across this bridge, but that day I did.

The bridge was fine at the time, but for whatever reason, this bridge decided that 40 years was enough.

Built in 1967, this baby went down into the water of the Mississippi that you see here. I am only glad that I did not drive across this bridge today and have the bridge fall out from under me. One story I read today was of a woman involved in the bridge collapse who had previously been in a severe earthquake and survived. In this incident she actually had to crawl out of a window from her sinking car.

Yikes!

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