Pat Collins: What Annoying Hack

NBC 4's Pat Collins has to be one of the most annoying "personalities" on local TV. I mean, watching his news reports feels like the guy who voiced the old Winnie-the-Pooh went to the William Shatner acting school. And, yes, it's exactly as annoying as you'd think such a combination would be.

Pat Collins needs to get out of the news business. What a freaking hack.

w00t! Gonna go look at daigz on Saturday!

A couple days after we put Lana down, we decide, "yeah, it would be a good idea to try to look for something to fill the hole that Lana left". So, we went on PetFinder and started looking. Obviously, with the Caribbean vacation we were just about to embark on, we had to put the actual plans for visits on hold. But, now back from our trip, I could start contacting rescue organizations. We're gonna go out to Friends of Homeless Animals (the organization we got Puckett from) this weekend to see if there's any dogs we might be able to bring home. We're bringing Puckett along so he can give us an initial "OK" (or veto). Then, we gotta get a home visit to see how compatible any new pups are with the cats.

Still, hopefully have a new guy/girl before the end of January.

GV Audio Transcripts

Let me start by saying, "I love Google Voice." If they ever turn it into a commercial product, I'd have no problem paying for it (especially if they added some other features). I mean, the ability to set up screenable call-groups and availability windows and forwarding options is just freaking awesome. The voice-to-text transcription service for voicemails is a nifty idea, too (I say "idea" because, in its current form, it's just "not quite there").

I love GV transcriptions of voicemails - for entertainment more than functional utility. Even the best of translations usually need work. And, when you get a message from someone with an accent, speech impediment or just "mush-mouth", the transcriptions should just say "you're on your own with this one!"

Don't get me wrong, the service makes a game attempt at translations. And, well...

Yesterday, I got a call from someone who I had a hard time understanding. Unfortunately, she was trying to give me directions to a destination, but I didn't have anything to write with, so, she offered to call back and leave a voicemail. It was just as funny a transcript as I was expecting. About the only way it could have been funnier is if GV woulda just done the same thing as in the Minnie the Moocher subtitles in the original Blues Brothers movie.

NOT THAT BUTTON

I really think there should be mandatory training on correct use of the "Reply" and "Reply-all" buttons before giving people email access. Just because a message was sent to a group doesn't mean you need to reply to the entire group. We really don't need to see it, and, what's more we don't want to see it.

Gah.

I hate people.

The whole "Reply All" thing  was why, when I was last administering a corporate mail system, I put ACLs on distribution lists.

And, as you probably guessed, I hate chain letters and the like, too.

Wrinkles in Plans

It occurred to me that, if we get a new dog, soon, I'll need someone to go with me to weekend home Flyers games. Hopefully, it won't be a full-season thing. Hopefully, the new daig will adjust quickly enough that we can feel comfortable making weekend day-trips. But, still.

Dunno what's gonna happen with Christmas, if we can get a dog sorted before then, either. I don't think it will be an issue, given that we won't even be starting to see dogs until the 18th and most rescues want to do home-visits before placing a dog. Given that Christmas is inside a week, I don't see it getting knocked out before then. But, we may be pleasantly surprised. If we are, then, may need to change Christmas travel plans.

Runny nose + mustache = bad combo

When growing a beard, mustache, etc., you just don't really think about "what happens when I get a cold". I gotta think that similar is the case for people getting nose-rings.

Incorrect Impressions

Hmm... I think AmEx might be assuming too much from all the recent spending. I really don't need a credit increase.

Yes, I get that I spent a crap-ton this month. There was the $2000 in veterinary bills (veterinary ER visit, followed up, a few days later, by euthanasia and cremation costs). There was the nearly $2000 in supplemental fees paid to the cruise line (alcohol and shore excursions, etc.). And, of course, there was the $1300 for Donna's new sparkly (the place had had it priced at $5900, but, let it go for $1300 ...yet, I still felt skinned). Plus, my normal monthly expenditures (we do all our utilities, etc., grocery bills and the like through the card). And, of course, it's the Christmas shopping season.

So, it was a big month. But, at this point, they should have enough of a shopping history on me to know that it was rather an atypical month. Upping my credit limit by 50% isn't going to make me spend more. In fact, other than the utilities, groceries, etc., I don't have any expenses planned requiring its use for the next several months (ideally, not till Christmas 2011).

Whatevs: not like they charge me a carrying fee or anything.

Wonder if Roto-Rooter does sinuses?

Seriously.

I really hate colds. At least I waited to catch this one until the end of my Caribbean cruise rather than the beginning. Even better, it waited to really nail me until after my flight got back. I've been on airplanes with really bad sinuses and it's miserably painful: the low air-pressure, at altitude, makes your ears feel like they're going to burst. Or, even more fun, if your head seals up at altitude, landing and being on the ground is excruciating.

Ugh.

Dear Rescue Organisations:

Look: I know that you mean well; I know that you want every dog you place to be placed in a "forever home"; I know that you want each of your charges to have a perfect home.

Unfortunately, I think that what some of you forget is that, at the end of the day, you want to place a dog in a home. The home doesn't have to be perfect. It especially doesn't have to be so perfect that it, somehow, magically makes up for all of the abuses and injustices that caused those dogs to be in your charge. There is such a thing as "good enough". And, while "good enough" does encompass perfect, magical, etc., less than those are also valid. Basically, so long as the place your charges are placed into are loving homes that do their best for those dogs (even if their best isn't perfect), you've discharged your duties

I went through this nonsense before we got Lana. Our house wasn't good enough for a breed-specific rescue (even though our house was far better then the house that the would-be pet was being fostered in).. Yet, somehow, our pets have managed to be well-cared for and very much loved. I don't like adoption forms that make me feel like I'm being judged simply for wanting a pet. Congratulations: a dog that would have been happy here now has to wait longer to find a forever home.

Call-tree and On-Hold Lies

If my call is so important, why is it so hard to get through the call-tree and why am I on hold for so freaking long?

Big Ten Shits the Bed

Yegads. Go away for a vacation and come back to find the Big Ten shit the bed on the new logos and division names. WTF is this atrocity:

I mean, if the designers' goal was to create a united sentiment in a conference where all the members hate each other and agree on nothing, well, then, "bravo". They succeeded in creating something so sucktastic that everyone who's a fan of a Big Ten school can, at least, agree on how awful the logo is. And, if they can't agree on that, they can agree on how mind-bendingly stupid the new division names are.

Lastly, I don't get the whole Paterno trophy for the conference championship. I get that JoePa's an institution and the winningest living coach in BCS football. So, yeah, definitely worthy of having a trophy named after him ...except that he's: A) still alive; and B) still coaching. It feels like a not so subtle move by the league to get JoePa to step down. I'm a PSU alum and would be duly-bound to adore him (even if I didn't already like him for what he was, stands for and does), but the thought of JoePa winning a Stagg-Paterno trophy is rather weird.

Greh.

Fuck you, winter. Fuck you straight in your frigid ass.

So, we spent the week, cruising the tropics. Going from where it was in the upper 30s/lower 40s to someplace where it was in the 70s all day seemed awesome. Unfortunately, we came back home and the 30s/40s had been replaced by days peaking in the lower/mid 20s. Argh.

Makes You Hungry

When the pool's next to the kitchen and your balcony overlooks the pool, your balcony smells of bacon in the morning.

Odd Labeling

Something odd about bi-lingual product labelings being in English and French ...in Puerto Rico. I mean, I get that Aveda (the maker of the hotel toiletries) has standard labeling of its products. It just seemed "odd".

I'm Pretty Sure US Air's Theme Song Should Be "Let's Get Retarded"

Ok, so, the trip down to Puerto Rico wasn't horrible. One of the legs of the trip down we were upgraded to first class (granted, it was the 20 minute flight to Philly, but, at least there was free alcohol). The PHL-to-SJU leg was what you'd expect from coach-class.

A couple days before our return, we got email notifications that we'd been upgraded on both the longer SJU-to-CLT leg and the shorter CLT-to-DCA leg. Coolness: free alcohol and extra space (we'll ignore the free hospital-quality food). Twenty-four hours before flight-time, got the notification to do web check-in.

It was at this point that it all went sorta sideways. I hit the "Check-in" button and then the "select seats" option. Everything was cool on the SJU-to-CLT leg - other than that our seats weren't together (no biggie, we figured we'd just ask people to trade so we could be together). However, the CLT-to-DCA leg was fuxored. Though both of us had been upgraded and our coach seats de-assigned, there was only one seat selectable for us in First Class. It also wouldn't even let me re-select a coach seat for either of us. Fuck.

So, I clicked on the "contact us" link. I called the number, navigated the call-tree and then was placed on hold for a CSR. Eventually, the CSR came on the line and quickly informed me, "oh, that's an international itinerary: you'll need to talk to the international ticketing desk. I'll transfer you, but here's the number in case you get disconnected..."

I'd never really considered Puerto Rico to be "international" given their legal relationship to the US. However, in retrospect, Puerto Rico does have it's on TLD (pulling up Google redirects you to google.com.pr) and has Spanish as its primary language. So...

At any rate, the CSR transfers me ...to the "international" call-tree (i.e., not a "warm hand-off"). Grr... I navigate the new call-tree and eventually get a new CSR. She finds that the CLT-to-DCA situation requires supervisor override (apparently, there were seats available in first class, but reserved and the supervisor was the only one that could force-allocate me a seat). She puts me on hold while they sort things out. Eventually, she comes back on the line and tells me I've got both my seats but that they're not next to each other. I figure "cool/whatever: we'll sort it out later". She also tells me I'm checked in and all I need to do is go back to the web site and click on the "print boarding passes" button. We say our goodbyes and I go back to my laptop to print out my tix.

The retardation that is US Airway's online reservations system isn't done with me, yet, however. While the website shows that I've now got two seats on each leg of the trip, it only lets me print the tickets for the seats that were allocated prior to my chat with the international reservations CSR. This is problematic, as I really didn't feel like having to ass-around in Charlotte due to not having a printed pass. So, I call US Airways, again. This time, I call their web tech support number, as this seems to be more a web-portal issue than a true ticketing issue. I navigate the call-tree and then wait on hold for a CSR. Eventually the CSR comes on the line. I identify myself and explain my issue. She asks me to hold while she tries to resolve it. Unfortunately, she has about as much success as I had and tells me to just have one of the gate agents print me all four passes when I check my bags. Great. This doesn't exactly give me the warm-fuzzies, but, "what can you do". On the marginal plus side, at least the CSR had the same problems I did. So, it wasn't a PEBKAC error on my part.

The next day, we get to the airport. We get a porter to lug our bags (they don't do the rental carts and Donna always packs heavy). We go through the APHIS/FDA screening, then go to the agent desk. Fortunately, being on a First Class itinerary, there were no lines to wait in. Donna discovers our desk agent is a kindred spirit: her ID-lanyard is printed with skulls and crossbones all over. The agent starts checking in our bags - tagging them and getting our bag-receipts all stapled up. However, she also appears to have issues getting all the tix to print. A supervisor is called over and eventually everything is all sorted out. As a bonus, our SJU-to-CLT leg is re-ticketed so that our seats are next to each other.

Strange Bedfellows

You can tell the cats think the house is cold when they curl up next to the dog on the dog-pillow.

The critical word here is "cats" (i.e., the plural of "cat"). Grumbles never had problems chilling out with either of the dogs. Bella, on the other hand, always hated the dogs. But, when she gets cold enough, she tries to lay down with them (typically Puckett because Lana would always growl at her - prolly had something to do with not liking  the fact that Bella frequently ambushed her).

Moving On

When you've a new hole in your life from a recently-departed pet, perusing PetFinder.Com is an great way to push some of the darkness back.

Some people wonder how I can start looking "so soon", but, for me, the best way to move forward is to start moving forward.

Besides, to me, it says something about the recently departed that they've left enough of a hole that you feel compelled to fill it. I miss Lana. A lot. I miss her dancing. I miss her singing. I miss her grumbling. I miss her company. I miss that extra warmth and life. I know I can't replace her, but I can do something to help fill the hole her departure has left.

All Things End

Today, we saw to the ending of our dog, Lana. Lana was a rescue. She was conveyed into our care by A Forever-Home Rescue Foundation in the spring of 2003 at one of their frequent adoption events at the Chantilly Petco.

 

The Lana Bear

 

I'm not sure what led her to us, but the marks in her coat and her reactions to certain people and actions always told us it wasn't an easy path..

 

After we'd gotten married in January, we felt the need to start our "family". We tried finding a dog from a number of places. First, we tried the local Animal Welfare League shelter. Alas, none of the critters we found there really "spoke" to us. Of the ones that did, they weren't compatible with the animal allergies that Donna had.

 

Along the way, we'd discovered that we liked bully-breeds. They're awesome dogs with a really undeserved bad reputation. First, we tried the local boxer and bulldog rescues. We even got so far as bringing home one lovely candidate, but she just didn't like our cats. So, we had to send her back.

 

During this process, we discovered that some of the breed-specific rescue organizations set unrealistic expectations for those seeking to adopt the dogs in their charge. I get that these are people who are genuinely concerned about the dogs in their charge, but it left kind of a bad taste in our mouth. We were essentially told that our small (1400sq.ft.) duplex and fenced in yard weren't a suitable environment for the types of dogs we were hoping to adopt. Ironically, this came from people that were fostering dogs in smaller houses with even smaller (or no!) yards.

 

Lesson learned, we moved on in our searches.

 

Being an IT guy, Google had frequently proven to be a great tool for finding the things I wanted and needed. Indeed, in this pursuit, Google was our friend. Google led us to PetFinder.Com. PetFinder, in turn, led us to the A Forever-Home Rescue Foundation.

 

On their web site, we found this lovely, sweet-looking American Bulldog/Boxer mix. So, we contacted them to find out more. They'd indicated they were going to be having an adoption event at the PetCo in Chantilly, VA. In our conversations with them, it sounded like Lana might be an ideal match and that our environment might be well suited to her. At the time, we were still looking to have human children and already had a pair of cats. Lana was being fostered in a house with toddlers and infants and did well with them. Further, she'd shown no indications of problems getting along with cats. We marked the date on our calendar and drove out to Chantilly to meet Lana.

 

She was just as sweet as we thought she would be. She greeted us by offering first one paw to shake, then the other. She seemed to genuinely enjoy the attention she was getting from us, so we arranged to have her brought to our house to meet our cats.

 

The staffer from Forever-Home brought her out a few nights later. She was adequately pleased with the potential accommodations and Lana seemed to not be bothered by the cats (indeed, it was the cats - well, just one cat - who were harder to please). So, we did up the paperwork and she was ours.

 

The first years were hard. She showed some of the signs of the abuse she'd received before coming to us. She was getting over a bad heartworm infestation, and was somewhat slowed by that damage and the medications being used to treat it (the heartworms left her with a lifelong heart-murmur). So, she was always going to be a low energy dog. She was also extremely foot-shy, afraid of explosions (didn't find this out till the week of fourth of July) and afraid of black men. She'd also, at some point prior to coming to us, given birth to at least one litter of puppies. We surmised that, because of her looks and some of her "twitches" (things she was scared of), she'd probably been used as a breeder dog for a dog-fighting operation.

 

While she enjoyed shaking hands and doing what we came to refer to as "the boxer walk", she was otherwise not terribly interactive. She didn't care for chew toys - probably because her teeth were utterly busted (presumably part of her prior abuse). She had no tail to speak of. She was very much not a barking dog. However, she was quite vocal: she liked to trill and "rowl" and "roo" and grumble (which led to several of her nicknames: Lana bear; Moo-cow; Rooly-roo; Rowly-dog; etc.). It was all a part of her underlying sweetness and contributed to the simple joy of her presence.

 

Much as some parents of only-children discover that the first baby required siblings, Lana showed us that we needed another dog. That's when we got Puckett.

 

Puckett was exactly what she needed to be brought the rest of the way out of her shell. The dog we previously though had no tail, we discovered did have a tail. ...Well, she had a bump under the skin where a tail should have sprouted out. What we discovered is that, when she was really happy, she'd wiggle hat bump back and forth. She'd also sorta just wiggle all over. She also came to sing and dance when she was rally happy. And, always, there was her boxer-walk.

 

Fortunately, we had nearly 8 years to enjoy her. But, like all good things, that time had to end. Today was that day.

 

After getting back from Thanksgiving, she'd been exhibiting unexplained pain - she'd always been amazingly pain-tolerant, that, to hear her yelp was very concerning. We'd also noticed that the lymphnodes in her neck were visibly swollen and felt angry to the touch. So, it was with dread that we took her to the vet. The vet asked us to leave her there so they could run some tests. The initial cytology looked suspect and her pain turned out to be coming from her back. Xrays indicated she had an advanced case of spondylosis. The initial lymph aspiration smears looked troubling, but it would be a couple days till they had definitive lab results. So, the sent her home with muscle relaxers, mild-narcotics and anti-biotics.

 

We waited two days for the lab results. During that time, Lana mostly slept. She didn't really drink and was pooping infrequently. So, we weren't expecting the results to be good. And, when they called, Tuesday evening, they weren't Turns out the swollen lympnodes were because of a lyphosarcoma.

 

The vet offered the possibility of chemo to treat the cancer. However, Lana was 10 years old, apparently had chronic and deteriorating back pain and the history of heart problems. Given her size-range, she really only had an expected average lifespan of about two more years.

 

The vet couldn't promise us that the chemotherapy would either put her into remission or not make her sick in the process. Even if she could have, there was the matter of the bad and deteriorating back. She was noticeably weak around the hind quaters - somewhat tottery when standing and fragile when laying. It only made sense that we let her go.

 

We made an appointment to see her on her way at noon, today. We lavished her with attention all night and gave her one last big meal of all her favorite foods: gobs of peanutbutter, rice, cheese, chicken, tongue and topped it with a splash of bourbon (we'd have given her Guinness - her real favorite - but there was none in the house, so we gave her what she'd previously demonstrated was a runner-up favorite). We continued to lavish attention on her, throughout the morning. We took last pictures and waited for the death-clock to count down.

 

We arrived at the Alexandria Animal Hospital about 20 minutes ahead of her appointment. I'd left early in anticipation of being delayed by the construction plaguing the 1½-mile stretch between our house and the vet's office. I'd not wanted to be late for fear we'd have to reschedule. As heart-rending as waiting for the original appointment had been, it would have been soul-killing to have to reschedule. Somehow, there was no delay today. So, we waited out the appointment time by taking her on one last mini-walk through the grassy areas outside the vet's office.

 

Three minutes ahead of the appointed time, we went in. The staff was very caring and discreet, quickly escorting us back to the room where they do the procedure. We didn't have to sit and wait in a waiting room, trying not to cry in front of strangers. We were able to go to a private room where the vets and techs were able to walk us through things, giving us all the time we needed to get ready for the procedure.

 

Eventually, they took her to the back to put a catheter in and give her an anti-anxiety medicine. They then brought her back to the room for the administration of the euthanising chemicals. They also brought her a whole, big bowl of a meat-hash to enjoy before the administration of the chemicals. Meal done, they gave us a few minutes alone with her, then the vet came back in to finish the process. Donna held onto Lana and I held onto them both.

 

First, the anesthetic was injected into the catheter. She fairly quickly showed its effects moving from standing to sitting to laying. Once she was sure Lana was fully sedated, the vet then adminstered the killing cocktail. I watched the awareness and life drain from her eyes and listened as her breathing slowed to a stop. The vet offered us time alone with her.

 

During that window, there was the death-rattle, and then, I watched the last visible twitches of life cease.

 

The veterinary nurse then came in to take Lana's corpse for cleanup. While back there, they took a paw-cast. Cleaned up, they brought her back to us. Donna wrapped her in a blue sheet she'd soaked with rose and lavendar scent. I then carried her out to the SUV and we drove home.

 

Once home, I took her to the back porch so that Donna could say her goodbyes. Donna wrapped her in a second shroud and sewed up up with blue stitching. She then wrote all the various nicknames, we'd come to know her by over the years, on the shroud. Her rites done, Donna picked up Lana's shrouded corpse and carried her back through the house and back out to the car.

 

I then made the slow drive, Donna and Dog in the back seat, to Sunset Pet Services. They're a local pet funeral and cremation facility. We were taking her there for cremation as they offer individual cremation services.

 

We'll be picking up her ashes, tomorrow. Her ashes will be spread over our roses so that we can see a little bit of her each time the flowers begin to bloom in the spring.

 

Am I Too Skeptical

I am a StumbleUpon user. It's an unbelievably efficient time-suck. Any time you press that Stumble! button, you get taken to some random page that, four times out of five, appeals to you. Granted there's a crapton of junk. And, sometimes the things you get, you're not really sure "what interest did I click that I got this page??"

I think, somewhere, I must have clicked some mislabled "conspiracy theory" interest button. Frequently, I get Stumbles that are purportedly factual, but, if you question the content, there's little corroborating content available. And, no, I don't consider other unknown/fringe sources to be either reliable or corroborating.

Yesterday, I stumbled a Mashable article about DHS/ICE supposedly seizing a bunch of piracy-oriented web sites. The content of the article struck me as odd, because, the last I'd heard from sources like EFF (and similar sites), COICA had not been passed by the last Congress or Senate, nor had it made it to Obama's desk for signing. It was my understanding that COICA was being formulated because the federal government currently couldn't act as the various IP-holders' (RIAA, MPAA, etc.) proxy as they'd never been delegated the power.

The Mashable article did reference a NY Times article, but that was the closest to a "known" news site I could find. The rest were various left-field sites whose coverage consisted mostly of quoting the Mashable and NY Times articles (and with miles-long "comments" sections). I've yet to see anything from EFF - at their website, via their FaceBook group or even their Twitter feed - on the subject. I've not even seen anything posted, yet, by Declan McCullagh. Both sources tend to be pretty on top of and vocal about news stories in this vein.

Absent the other usual suspects' mention, I became suspicious. I mean, while the TSA and other organizations frequently trample on the 4th Amendment, they at least try to make it look like they aren't. And, when they do, EFF, ACLU and other organizations are generally pretty vocal and public with their opposition. Secondly, governmental seizures are usually the domain of the DoJ and FBI, not DHS and certainly not ICE. DHS is usually "terrorism" oriented and ICE is generally immigration oriented. Piracy-enabling websites wouldn't really seem to logically fall under either of those domains.So, I started digging.

First of all, the sites that were supposedly taken down by ICE are all redirected to seizedservers.com. This seems odd, to me. I mean, if these were truly the result of governmental actions, wouldn't they have redirected to seizedservers.GOV, instead. So, I poked about a bit more.

I did an IP lookup on the seizedservers.com web site. Using `nslookup`, I found that the IP associated with that site was "74.81.170.109". Next, I queried the ARIN to see who owned that IP address. The results indicated that the IP address was owned by a Carolina-based ISP.

Curiouser and curiouser: why would the IP be owned by a Charlotte-area ISP rather than some government agency. I mean, it's not like the Federal government's short on IP addresses they could delegate to DHS or ICE. After all, both Senate.Gov and House.Gov are run off of Federal IP ranges. And, yes, I get that many of the Federal government's public webhosting is done through external providers (I used to work for a site that hosted USPS's stuff). However, most of the sites I've done lookups against that are externally hosted, seem to be hosted by Akamai, these days. For example, both the White House and the main DHS web site seemed to be hosted by them. ICE, as a sub-department of DHS would, logically, have similar hosting arrangements. 

Lastly, seizedservers.com was only registered on November 24th of this year and just days prior to the supposed domain seizures. I've done a lot of work with governmental groups over the years. None of them go from "just registered" to actively working in less than a week (usually, you're talking months, quarters or even years).

I realize I could easily be wrong, but none of it seems to "add up". To me, it looks more like it's either a hoax to get the file-sharing community up in arms or that the sites got their domains stolen (by "hackers", not the US government). Can anyone provide definitive proof that this is "for real". It seems like a pretty big story for the mainstream news outlets and the various rights and privacy groups to be asleep at the wheel on.

High-Gravity Sunday

Last night, Donna and I slept downstairs to keep Lana company. It appears that the spondylosis the vet had discovered as the source of the prior day's yelping was causing her too much discomfort to allow her to be brought upstairs to bed. Given her screechiness, even if I could have gotten her upstairs, I was worried that the pain she was exhibiting would make it difficult, if not impossible, to get her out of her box and back down this morning. So, we let her park herself, as comfortably as she could, on her throw pillow and we bedded down near her to keep her company.

As we waited for the pain meds to help her drift off to sleep, we had some painful discussions. While I'd be most concerned about the swollen lymph glands, earlier in the evening, it seemed like the back problem was an even more pressing problem. Worse, it seemed like it was progressing. We decided we'd watch for changes, today, and make decisions based on that.

Unfortunately, it's still not looking any better. She still seems to be in a level of discomfort. She seems unsure on her feet. She doesn't seem to want to poop and she doesn't seem to want to drink (I even tried raising her water dish up so she'd not have to bow her head down to drink). Yet, at the same time, she seemed like she wanted to be herself. She was very interested in her breakfast. She tried to do her morning dancing. When we brought Puckett down, she seemed to want to share in his morning exuberance. 

I don't know whether the pain meds are helping and are likely to get her to meaningfully improve. The not drinking is worrying. I don't know that I saw her drink at all, yesterday - I know she hadn't after coming home. I believe that we're going to end up having to make the decision, today or tomorrow, to send her on her way. It's seeming like the potential lymphoma's just going to end up being an interesting but otherwise meaningless data point.

It's feeling more and more like we're soon to be coming to the end of our 8 years, together. Still, I wasn't even expecting her to get to be this old. She had heart problems when we got her. She had that health-scare last December that made me think we were going to be sending her on her way, then. So, maybe, this is just another scare, but, it really doesn't feel like it's just a scare. It just feels like she's aged a lot in the last couple months and it's finally caught up.

Gotta call the vet's office, later, to see if I can get some idea of how progressed her spondylosis is. Gotta talk and see if holding out, too much longer, makes sense.

Why November?

I should probably start by saying that I'm not, particularly, a believer in luck, astrology or other similar things. I don't have a lucky number. I don't base or justify my actions on the alignment of the stars. If I believe in anything, it would be the inherent balance found in "regression to the mean". Beyond that kind of statistical paterning, I don't really believe much in a "grand design", mostly just "random chance".

That said, sometimes, the Universe makes it hard not to think that it's picked good and bad times of year for you. I have yet to detect a consistently good time. However, it's seemed that November is the month that the Universe has most frequently decided to test me with the adversity of death.

It started in the mid 90s. My family, as it had done pretty much every year of my life, to that date, had come together for Thanksgiving at my maternal grandparents' house.

It was like any other Thanksgiving, up to that point. My grandmother had put together another wonderful, if somewhat bland, Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone had a nice, chatty meal together and overindulged in Turkey, stuffings, relishes, casseroles and the like. Afterwards, everyone retired to the living room - the men to watch football and the women to chit-chat. Inevitably, one or the other of us would nod off, struck down by the mass-infusion of tryptophan that suffused the turkey we'd all overindulged in.

As the afternoon rolled on towards evening, my grandfather went to get his usual pre-dinner coffee. He tottered off to the kitchen, poured himself a hot cup, then returned to his over-stuffed Lazy·Boy. He set the coffee down. A short while later, he started making a "snorking" noise. I'd initially assumed that he was nodding off, again, and just snoring. However, it was a bit different a sound than usual. It became quickly apparent that it wasn't the usual. He continued to snork, stiffened, then lolled forward out of his Lazy·Boy and onto the floor. My parents, both trained RNs, rushed to where he'd fallen and started to render CPR. My grandmother watched in horror. I watched in fascination.

My parents screamed to me, "call 911". For the life of me, I couldn't understand the urgency of the request: somewhere, deep down, I knew that he was dead before he'd hit the floor. But, I zombie-walked to the phone out into the kitchen and called EMS. It was a very calm, detached call. I related the requisite information to them so they could send an appropriate response.

Then, I drifted back into the living room. My parents were still rendering CPR, but it was very clearly doing nothing. I noted that my grandfather's abdomen had become oddly swollen. I put on my coat and went out the front door to await the EMS crews.

Eventually, the EMS crews arrived. It was still fairly sunny for as late in the afternoon it was. Still, it was a very crisp, windy, fall day. I directed the EMS crew into the house and towards my grandfather. My parents stepped back to let the paramedics take over duties. My mom went to comfort my grandmother while my father fell into "clinician" mode as he related the events to the paramedics.

As my parents had done before, they rendered CPR. Eventually, they stopped and pronounced my grandfather. They got a gurney from the ambulance and carted him away. Both parents attended to my grandmother. I just sort of stood around in kind of a "fascinating: I wonder what's next" kind of mental state.

Within the space of a few days, we'd seen to his wake and funeral, and then life started to move on. Not once did I shed a tear. In fact, I don't think that I have specifically shed a tear for him, to date. And, it's not that I didn't love him. He and I spent a lot of my youth together. We'd take trips to Baltimore and Philly each year to catch various sporting events. Invariably, his awful sense of direction would get us lost. Even with all the time we'd spent and as good as our relationship was, it just didn't prompt a crying response.

It wasn't until more deaths and other, similarly traumatic events occurred that I noticed lack of affect as a recurrent pattern for me.

Last November 19th, as I was being driven from work to the Metro station by my friend, Alex, I received a phone call from Donna. She was very frantically emotional. She kept asking me if I was sitting down or if I could find a place to sit down. Clearly, something was wrong. However, my affect was squelching. So, all I could really respond was, "please get on with the news." She informed me that my mom was on the other line and that she was calling to say that EMS was in the process of taking my father's body away. Apparently, while she was in the kitchen fixing suffer, he'd suffered a heart attack and had expired quietly as she'd bustled about in the kitchen. 

I can't say that I found the news particularly shocking. For the last several years, my father's appearance had pained me each time I saw my parents at holidays and other get-togethers. Each time I'd see him, my father looked visibly older. Just that August prior, when Donna was hospitalized, my parents had come down to visit: my dad looked awful. He looked so old and tired. So, I can't say that I was surprised or shocked by the call.

Pretty much, the rest of the evening was a blur. It was an awful, rainy day and DC traffic was horrible. Normally, the train ride from my office back to my house takes at least seventy minutes. The drive-time is usually only about half an hour. Wanting to get on with things and head back to PA to be with my mother, I decided, "fuck it, I'll take the cab". Unfortunately, I got the world's worst cabby: no idea of the local roads and no GPS. Worse, he didn't really speak English all that well, so, he misunderstood my directions. After an hour of thrashing through traffic, going all the wrong ways to get around it, I finally yelled at him to pull over and let me out. An hour of thrashing about in traffic and rain and we'd traveled less than two mile's line-of-sight distance. Fortunately, my friend, Mike, lived only a couple miles away. I got ahold of him and he drove me back to my house in Alexandria.

Donna and I hurriedly packed and headed up the road. Somewhere near Frederick, Maryland, the driver's-side rear tire flattened. We pulled into the next service-station and aired up. Also bought a can of fix-a-flat, and headed up the road. We stopped, at intervals, to verify that the tire was staying inflated. It appeared to be (mostly) holding air, and we made the rest of the trip incident-free.

Arrival started a whirlwind of order-sorting. In all of the deaths of friends and relatives, over the years, I'd never been one of the immediate "survivors". I never quite realized just how much bureaucracy was involved in a death. My mom was busy dealing with her grief. Donna saw to her. I buried myself in tackling the bureaucracy.

The next day, we went to the funeral home to meet with the funeral coordinator and to view the body. My father had been very explicit in his funerary wishes. He wanted only to be cremated and he wanted no funeral. With death, he couldn't understand the point of wasting money on a corpse. Thus, we honored his wishes. Having dug through paperwork, the night before, I was able to help my mom furnish the funeral director with the relevant military service and insurance information so that the funeral home could take care of details on their end.

Those details sorted, we went into the next room to view the body. And, really, that's all it was: just a body. There was very much not a spark of life in it. I noticed the odd palor and the mottling about his ears and extremities. It was fascinating.

When my mom was done saying her goodbyes, I asked to be left alone to say my own. It took a while, but, I was actually starting to feel the urge to cry. Unfortunately, it had taken me such a long while to reach that point, that Donna had become worried and come looking for me. The interruption broke me out of my reverie. The tears, that had just started to well, quickly withdrew. At that moment, all I had was rage for the interruption. Since that time, I've not really cried or felt much in the way of emotion, loss ...I just don't quite seem to be able to feel.

This year's Thanksgiving holiday week, the Universe seems to be again conspiring to try to make me feel. Lana had been acting sort of out of sorts. I'd noticed, yesterday, that the lymph nodes in her neck were palpably swollen. This morning, they were more swollen still. I told Donna, "we're going to need to call the vet for an appointment, Monday". I then went out in the yard to clear one of the garden beds of this past year's plants.

As I was finishing up the clearing efforts - taking the uprooted plant stocks out to the rubbish heap - I heard yelping coming from the house. I rushed inside to find out what the noise was. Puckett had apparently bumped Lana the wrong way, eliciting the first yelp. The subsequent yelps were Donna trying to locate the source of Lana's pain. It seemed Lana wasn't going to be able to wait for a Monday appointment.

We called the vet and related the symptoms. They told us to bring her down. Got there, did the checkin and passed Lana off to the triage-nurse. Eventually, the duty-veterinarian called us to back to one of the normal examining rooms. We chatted briefly about options. He suggested we admit her for a few hours so they could run some tests, take some labs and administer some analgesics. I agreed to this and we did the pre-pay before leaving. $1000 lighter in the pockets, I drove home with Donna and awaited the veterinarian's call.

I fell asleep on the couch while I waited. Eventually, around 8pm, the vet called. Initial cytology on the lymph nodes wasn't looking good, but definitive tests wouldn't be back till at least Tuesday. Xrays had shown nothing wrong in the abdomen - where she'd previously appeared to be feeling pain - but had shown that she'd developed spondylosis. That was apparently the cause of the pain. The vet prescribed meds and we went over what the likely coming decisions were going to be.

Donna and I then drove down to pick up Lana. She was dopey from the pain meds, but otherwise in decent spirits. We went over the discharge papers with the desk staff and headed on our way home.

As I sit here typing this, I still don't know what's going to become of our dog. All I know is that another Thanksgiving time of year has come and brought sadness with it. I'm getting tired of it. I just wish I could feel something other than detached resignation.

So, for Thanksgiving, what am I thankful for? That this time of year is soon behind me. My hope is that this seeming pattern is soon behind us.

At least I can VPN in and work while Donna is off hunting black Friday deals...

So Very Cold

Ok. The bedroom wasn't actually that cold. When we stay at my mom's for the holidays, the bed's closer to the window when we're at home and Donna gets too cold if it's left open at night. So, invariably, she closes it and the room begins to get more and more stuffy. Still...

Even more reliable than Donna getting cold from sleeping under that window is Donna's propensity for stealing covers. She does it all year long - even in summer as our airconditioning struggles against the DC heat. Then I'm typically happy to be shut of any extra covers. But still... What is this unstoppable urge that women have to steal covers in the dead of the night???

Another Successful Turkey-day

Donna loves to cook. She loves to make big, complicated meals. When it's just her and I eating, it's usually hard to justify the kind of effort and cleanup that such proclivities entail. So, occasions like Thanksgiving gives her a real chance to shine.

It doesn't come without real effort and hard work, however. Thanksgiving meal preparations are a multi-day affair. Before we left DC, she'd had to do some last minute marketing (going to farmers markets to source fresh food stuffs). She also mixed the doughs for the pie crusts she would be rolling-out once in Carlisle. She made a fresh loaf of challah bread to be used in the turkey-day stuffing and in a breakfast bread-pudding. Lastly, she did her whirlwind packing of all the cooking supplies (knives, specialty pans, etc.) she would need for this year's spread.

That was Tuesday. Wednesday, she made the pies. This year: two pumpkin pies and one pecan pie:

Pies!

The pumpkin pies were made from freshly (home) processed pumpkin purée. The pecan pie (or, as my mom frequently refers to it, "peekin pie") was made from pecans she and I had freshly shucked and flavored with her homemade vanilla extract (vanilla beans steeped, for over a year, in Ezra-B 10 year old KSBW). Pies done, she cut up half the loaf of challah bread and made an awesome bread-pudding (also flavored with the homemade vanilla extract!):

Fresh Bread-pudding

I imagine that, when she gets around to it, she'll post the recipe(s) on her blog.

The turkey-day sweets out of the way, she began her preparations of the turkey. Now, there's just the three of us, so, we don't bother with a whole turkey. We just get a couple drumsticks and a small, half-breast from a local farmer. For three people, it still manages to turn out to be a lot of meat. At any rate, over the years, we've discovered that brining turkey's is the key to ensuring that they're extra moist and flavorful. Sourcing from a good, local farm also helps a lot.

Years previous, when she was preparing dinner for five (Mom, Dad, my grandmother and Donna and me), we usually did the (small) whole bird thing. This required putting an entire turkey into a brining bag and letting it sit, over night, in a cooler out in the garage. This year, with it just being two drumsticks and a half breast, it was only two, large resealable Ziplocks tossed in the fridge:

Salty bird ...in the bags, that is

This morning, she got up and resumed preparations. Mom was scheduled to work at the nursing home and wouldn't be back till after 15:00. So, it was to be a late Turkey-day meal. Having stayed up the night before with the prep-work (and then some pre-vacation sewing!), Donna slept in till after 10:00. Wasn't long after that (and a slice of fresh bread pudding) that she got into the actual cooking phase. On the menu:

• Brined turkey rubbed and stuffed with herbed-butter
• hashed brussel sprouts with onions, garlic and bacon
• fresh cranberry relish
• horseradish mashed potatoes
• herbed, baked stuffing
• fresh, scratch-made biscuit
• gravy

No, I don't have the recipes for any of it. Hopefully, she'll make a post on her blog detailing it all. All I can really do is document it all. In the end, this was what ended up on our table:

As per usual: an excellent spread

All in all, a great way to get back into a family holiday.

A Better Homecoming

Seems like the family's back in stride on the Thanksgiving thing. Last year was a bit haphazard, given that my dad had died just a week prior. Much of our thoughts were on processing the emotions of that event and taking care of the mountain of bureaucracy that death lays at the survivors' feet.

On Tuesday evening, Donna and I packed up supplies and our dogs into the family truckster and headed northwards. My mom still lives in the town I grew up in - Carlisle, PA. It's about 120mi northish of Alexandria.

In general, it takes us about three hours to get there on the major holidays: an hour (or so) to get past the northern interior suburbs of DC (i.e., past Bethesda/Rockville/Gaithersburg) and then another hour or so to cover the remaining distance. In other words, we spend about 50% of the total travel time covering just the first 30% of the trip's distance. I hate DC traffic.

We left around 19:30. We didn't go directly to my mom's house, but, instead, stopped at the Wegman's in Camp Hill to pick up some stuff Donna needed for the turkey-day meal. Afterwards, we dropped by Your Place to pick up some frozen strombolis to take back to DC (they're not especially great, they just taste like "home"). Since we'd arrived after 22:00 at the grocery store, all of the Wegman's prepared foods had already been packed up for the day. So, having only had breakfast, I opted to pick up an additional fresh/hot `boli to take to my mom's house to eat for dinner.

We left Camp Hill for the final leg of the trip to Carlisle. My mom lives north of Carlisle. Typically, when we go straight there, from DC, I take Route 34 all the way up from US-15. That wasn't really an option, given that we'd detoured to Camp Hill. The GPS told me I should take US-11 back to Carlisle. Wasn't in the mood to do that, so, I turned north on PA-114, instead. The GPS suggested I might want to take I-81. Again, wasn't in the mood to follow its instructions. Instead, I kept heading down PA-114 till we hit Wertzville Road.

Now, Wertzville Road is one of those twisty-turny back roads you find all over PA. It was great fun as a teenager in a car packed full of friends. As an adult in an SUV on a dark, windy night, it wasn't as much fun as I remembered. However, the memories of high-tailing it down that road made it a more enjoyable trip. Donna loved it because, being so off the beaten path, there was very little in the way of light pollution meaning that she could see the stars in a way you can't see in the suburbs of DC. The dogs? They mostly just sat in the back seat and farted.

We finally arrived at my mom's house around 11PM. We unloaded the truck and started settling in. I set down to eating my stromboli while Mom and Donna caught up and made plans for the week.

All in all, much better than the prior year's urgent drive to PA to be by my mom's side in the wake of my dad's death.

The Good Wife?

There's a lot of TV programming I don't understand the point of. "The Good Wife" is one of those programs I just don't understand. I mean, when I saw the original commercials, it seemed like it was supposed to be some serial that was loosely based on the phenomena of politicians' wives that stick around even after the politician's been acused (and, frequently, proven guilty of philandering). Which, to me, didn't seem like much of a premise. But, now, the commercials seem like it's just some "women's drama" that is just holding on to a title without really having anything to do with the title.

Perhaps it would make more sense if I bothered to watch the show. Then again, nothing I've seen in the commercials is providing a compelling case for taking time out of my schedule to do so.

Life in IT

For better or worse, I've had a moderately successful career in IT. After nearly 15 years of working in the field, I've accrued a certain level seniority relative to my peers. Unfortunately, this means I'm generally in the position of being "the expert" on any number of technologies, tasks, etc. By itself, that isn't the unfortunate part. No, what's unfortunate is that I am generally charged with making advanced technologies more accessible to less experienced people. Even that isn't inherently problematic.

What's problematic is, much as seems to be going on with society at large, IT is being dumbed-down. New IT technologies are still frequently quite complex. Thus, the clueful amongst us get tasked with figuring it out for the less clueful. Unfortunately, what one used to be able to assume as knowledge-baseline, ten years ago, for more junior staff doesn't hold true, today. Truly, it seems like we're expected to be turning over ever more complex technologies to people that are less and less prepared to manage them. Thus, the documents we're tasked with writing requires more and more dumbing down. In many cases, it seems like I'm expected to write things so that a poorly-trained chimp can do them.

Don't get me wrong. For the most part, I like what I do. I get to work with some cool stuff. It just feels like, more and more, those that I am tasked with helping aren't ready (or, worse, particularly interested) in those things I'm tasked with helping them with.

As the years pass, I find that I am forced to more  frequently despair of the lack of expertise present or expected in people who's job it is (or should be) to know what the fuck it is they're doing

Psychological Studies Played Out in Real Life

In the field of psychology, there is a social phenomena sometimes referred to as the "bystander effect". This is the phenomena where people's actions - particularly their likeliness to help another person in distress - is inversely proportional to the number of other people present. At its most basic, the more people there are around when something goes wrong, the less likely someone is to help. A certain paralysis develops in large-groups. Each person present first thinks "someone else will help", and, sometimes, when no one steps up to help, it becomes "there must be a reason no one is helping - so, I won't either."

I got to witness this, first-hand, this past Saturday afternoon while attending the Penn State vs. Indiana University football game held at FedEx Field in Landover, MD. My wife and I were attending the game with a group of people. We were all seated up in row 9 in section 404 of the stadium (pretty much at the endzone line at the "home" end of the field). At one point, early in the first quarter, some guy came tottering, drunkenly, down the stairs to head to the section-exit. At some point, whether due to either simply tripping or losing his balance or due to having passed out due to extreme inebriation, the man fell.

Now, the stairs in this part of the stadium are fairly steep. So, when he fell, he tumbled quickly down about five seating-rows' worth of stairs. This made about ten, hard, rough concrete steps he fell down. Worse, at the bottom of his tumble, he pretty my landed on the right side of his face. As he lay there motionless, many onlookers sat about, looking aghast, but otherwise doing nothing. Even the people immediately adjacent to where he came to a stop did nothing but watch. I couldn't believe what I was seeing: no one was rushing off to find section attendants to render aid.

Realizing that no one was going for assistance, I bolted down the adjacent set of stairs and sought out assistance. I found a pair of PG County Police-auxiliaries standing out on the deck outside the section and directed them to the scene of the incident. I was the only person to seek them out. Even as we approached where the incident had occurred, they weren't sure what I was blathering about, as no one was paying particular attention to the situation. They did get to the man and helped him up as he came to.

Just boggles my mind that, during what seemed like an eternity, no one did anything. No one sought help. No one sought to render aid. No one really paid much in the way of attention beyond gawking. Whut. The. Fuck?

You Only Get *One* Pageview: Make It Count

So, yesterday, some blogger decided to use twitter to drive traffic to their site. Specifically, the link they posted was about the poor, beleaguered TSOs that are stuck having to implement the TSA's regressive policies.

Now, don't get me wrong, I understand that, yes, the TSOs "are human beings, too". And, yes, I get that many find things about their jobs that they don't like. Point of fact, most, if not all, people have parts of their jobs they hate. Many people utterly despise their jobs. Many people love their jobs. Most of us fall somewhere along that love-hate spectrum - frequently, all across it, depending on when you ask. So, yeah, "I get it."

That said, when I've hated jobs, I've typically sought and found other, less soul-crushing ways to earn my living. It's what you do if you want to stay sane. It's what you do if you don't want to poison the rest of your life. And, yes, many times, I've had to suck on the poison-pill while I wait for that next job to come along that alleviates my need to deal with the odiousness of whatever the job I seek to escape is.

All that aside, I don't pity the TSOs their positions. They're employed voluntarily. They can leave any time they want - after all, they're employeees, not slaves or conscripts. If they hate that they have to grope people, if they go home crying, every day, because of the verbal abuse meted out to them in response to what they say or do to passengers, then quit.

Chances are, the reason they're crying or just feeling bad is that they know that what they're doing is wrong. Providing the excuse of "just following orders". And, no, it's not unfair for passengers to say that the TSOs are acting like Nazis. At the Nürnberg Trials, some variant of "just following orders" was a fairly popular defense (Adolf Eichmann being one of the most famous for employing it). It didn't work then. It won't work now.

For those TSOs who were in the US Armed Forces prior to the TSA, your military code of conduct says that you should refuse to follow what you believe to not be a lawful or moral order. So, don't try to pull my heartstrings about having served in the military prior to being a TSO. Your military training makes it so you should know better.

For those TSOs of Jewish decent who take offense at the comparison? I've little pity for you, either. As Jews, you should be acutely aware of the history of how distasteful the "just following orders" defense is.

And, to the writer of that blog entry? I don't care whether you feel like you're being a mouthpiece or not. I don't care about the rest of the contents of your site. When you posted your link on Twitter, it was for a specific page on your site. There are billions of pages up on the internet. Only a few of those pages are of sufficient interest to make a reader want to read more by a given author. So, when you use Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, etc. to drive traffic to your site, know that 99.999% of the readers who get to your site through those means will only know you through what they see you write on that one page. So, when you add commentary to your article that seems apologistic or you quote links used by the same people that are the source of irritation, you will be seen in the light of those comments. Deal with it.

Do Poll-Quoters Even Understand the Polls They Quote?

Ok, so, I've now seen references to two different polls that claim to support the TSA's enhanced pat-downs. One is the one that the TSA cites in their blog and one was one cited in the LA Time's news blog. In both cases, the people claiming the polls support their view didn't seem to actually read how the polls were structured.

The poll cited by the TSA in their blogs was what statisticians would refer to as a "non-representative sample". The poll was a random sampling of the population-at-large. It was not a sampling of the traveling-population. In other words, the sample population could be be heavily skewed towards respondents not directly effected by the new policies. If the TSA wanted to be more convincing, they'd have polled actual travelers - particularly frequent-travelers. Then there might be something resembling validity in the results.

The poll cited in the LA Time's news blog uses the misleading claim of "travel professionals". It's used in a way to make the un-careful reader think they're referring to people that fly, on a frequent basis, as part of their job. However, if one bothers to read rather than just skimming (or even just taking a headline at face value), one discovers that the "travel professionals" polled were the people making travel arrangements. It wasn't a poll of people that use those travel arrangements. Much like the poll cited by the TSA, it's not a poll of those directly impacted by the TSA policies.

Unfortunately, there's far too many people out there who take things at face value. There's far too many skimmers. There's far too many "headlines-only" readers. Simply put, there's too many people that are simply lazy in how they choose to inform themselves. News organizations, corporations and anyone in the spin business knows this and take advantage of it.

You Call That "Security"?

Ok, so my "security-minded" bank requires you to change your web portal password at 45-day intervals. Further, they require a minimum password length and you can't re-use a password within ten change. Oh... and these rules are in place for a service that gets used once every 30 days (so, it's not like you get a chance to memorize your password by frequent use).

Even more fun is that: A) they don't have an online password reset tool once you get locked out; and, B) they only have CSRs available M-F during business hours.

Toss in the fact that passwords may not contain the types of characters I use to make my passwords "suitably complex":



...and this bank's authentication system is kind of a joke.

I guess I'm not a good human being or DC-area resident that I don't care about the Chandra Levy Trial...

Where Was My Mind

I have my occasional "absent-minded" moment. Some days, I have more moments than others. Today, I ad a real winner of a moment...

I just went into the kitchen and found the bottle of milk on top of the refrigerator and my pill-box sitting in the fridge on the milk-shelf. I may have been a touch "distracted" when I took my evening pills, earlier, tonight.

Oops.

Fortunately, the two items had only been transposed for less than 15 minutes. So, I don't have to immediately kill a luke-warm, half-gallon bottle of milk to keep from wasting $4 worth of milk.

Probably Never Happen

Many (most?) police departments have taken to recording interactions with the public. It helps provide proof that the law enforcement officer (LEO) was acting professionally when there's questions about inappropriate conduct or police brutality. In theory, it's a great idea. In practice, it still has its flaws (e.g., when there's accusations of wrongdoing and videos go "missing", are "damaged" or there were recording equipment "malfunctions"), but it's a start down the right path.

Right now, the TSA's in the middle of a growing backlash over their increasingly invasive "security" measures. These days, the TSA wants you to be irradiated while holding a "I'm being mugged" pose so that some government drone can look at, essentially, naked pictures of you. As an "alternative", they have been offering people the option of being given a pat-down.

When this started, the pat-down was fairly innocuous. However, too many people were choosing the option, thus defeating the point of billions of dollars in purchases of expensive, "sexy" machines. The TSA wasn't too fond of people opting out of their security theatre, so they decided to make the pat-down an option too unpleasant to consider. They directed their glorified Barney Fifes to conduct pat-downs that, outside of a government-sanctioned context, would be considered sexual assault.

Now, it seems to me that, given what they've put in place, they really should consider the LEO-esque video-taping of such interactions. That way, if a case ever went to criminal or civil proceedings, the TSA agents would be able to provide proof of no wrong-doing in the form of video tapes. I'm guessing, however, that this will never happen. The TSA knows, all too well, that if a case ever went to court, such video tapes would be damning rather than vindicating.

Sunday Dinners

Often times, Sundays are the days that Donna chooses to go all-out when making dinner. Tonight was one of those nights. She put together a nice osso bucco served with chanterelle risotto and a brussel sprout and allium hash. Served it with a nice, bright red wine.

Sunday Dinner

She'll probably write up what she did on her blog.

Avery's a Bum

I'd not shed a single tear were I to open the sports page and be greeted with news of Sean Avery's horrifying, agony-filled death. He's a piece of gutter-trash that the world would be a better place without. I mean, he makes Tie Domi seem like a class act.

Road Trips

So, in a little bit, Donna and I will be heading up to Philadelphia to, hopefully, see the Flyers trash the Panthers. To be honest, if I hadn't seen the team name on the tickets, I wouldn't have remembered that the Panthers even exist - the same holds for pretty much all of the teams from states with no, naturally occurring, outdoor ice.

We're taking my car up to Philadelphia, this time. Donna's in the middle of doing several sewing projects. With the DST nonsense, it will be dark early and Donna will need cabin-lighting to see. The passengers' cabin-lights in the BMW are a lot more directed than they are in the SUV. She can have her light on and not make me night-blind. The same can't be said of the lights in the SUV (just one of many differences between a $50K car and a $25K car, I guess).

For all the expense and niceties of the BMW, it's an old car (a 2002 model year). The head unit that came with it didn't have an auxiliary-port through which to plug in an iPod or similar device. All it has is the CD-player. There's, effectively, little in the way or radio once you get too far north of Baltimore. Pretty much, you have to bring your music with you to cover the hour+ stretch north of Baltimore where radio ends.

When It comes to my car, that means I gotta burn CDs to listen to (if I want new music each trip). It's kind of a pain in the ass.

I'd get a new head-unit for my car, but none of the after-market units work with my steering wheel-based controls. And, at nine years old, I'm always hesitant to spend the money to get someone to do the work necessary to preserve use of the steering wheel controls.

Browsing SNAFUs

Yeah, I know that it's actually the fault of AdBlock+, but there's still something weird about the fact that my Google-produced Chrome seems to be unreliable in playing videos from Google-owned YouTube.

Think I'll Pass

Why do I get the idea that Knucklehead will perpetuate the truisms about movies that start professional wrestlers?

This guy?

I mean, "The Big Show" may be a nice guy and all. He may even be of above average intelligence. And, truly, "professional wrestling" is all about acting. I just can't see that he's going to be someone to put on a compelling movie-acting performance. Worse, a movie that centers around a wrestler playing a wrestler (I'm presuming: commercials frequently aren't accurate indicators of movie contents) in a comical farce gives me little in the way of faith that this will be a high-quality flick. Really: I'm wondering how this movie got any budget for advertising. It just strikes me as a movie made to go "straight-to-tape".

Not All Ounces Are Created Equal

So, today, I was telecommuting. I was working on a "how to use NetApp Fibrechannel Storage With RedHat Multipathing" document. As I usually do when telecommuting, I had the TV on to make background noise. At one point, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire came on.

As far as gameshows go, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is not the most horrible of the bunch. Certainly, it's far better than the ferret-level intelligence required for Wheel of Fortune and less trailer parkish than Let's Make a Deal. Still, the show's a dumbed-down version of the same show that came from England.

Even dumbed-down, there's certain standards that one really should maintain. I mean, if you're going to ask a question - I don't care how hard or easy it is - you should expect a correct answer. More, the answer that you're asking for should be correct.

Today, I had the pain of seeing really poor writing and fact-checking at play. The question asked was something along the lines of, "If a man weighs 150lbs and gold's market price is $1000 an ounce, how much would the man be worth if he were composed entirely of gold?" The answer they wanted (and got) from the contestant was $2.4Mn. Now, that answer would be correct, if gold were measured in the same units that body weight is measured in. However, that is simply not the case. Gold is measured in troy ounces (ozt.). Body weight is measured in avoirdupois ounces (oz.). Ok, typically body weight (in the US) is measured in "pounds" but, that's neither here nor there - it's the underlying conversions that are material to this question.

A quick search shows that, one pound of body weight equates to 16 avoirdupois ounces (or 16oz). Whereas, one pound of body weight equates to roughly 14.583 troy ounces (or, 14.583ozt). That means that the 150lb man would be 2400oz. and 2187.5ozt. (or thereabouts). As previously established, gold is measured in ozt, not oz. Therefore, the calculation should have been $1000/ozt * 2187.5ozt to get a value of $2.187Mn, not the $2.4Mn that was offered as an answer option.

Grr... Sloppy (and, yes, I didn't worry about the significance of my numbers when I placed decimals and did my rounding - sue me).

No KSH Love

I've been using UNIX operating systems (and workalikes) for a long time, now. The first UNIX system I touched was in 1989. As a longtime user of UNIX, I've developed some deeply set habits and preferences.

One such preference is my choice login-shell. I am a Korn Shell (KSH) user. Unfortunately, it's not super well-supported under Linux. It's made available more as a concession to dinosaurs, such as myself, than as a real "we think this is a good shell" type of effort. While each of the other myriad shells in Linux seem to come with a default shell initialization script in /etc/skel, KSH is given no such file.

All I can guess is that the distribution/package maintainers figure, "if this person's using KSH, they have enough clue to know how to put together a proper shell init file - no sense bothering to provide one." Worse, so few of today's UNIX "administrators" seem to get that there's shells other than BASH, that they don't bother to alter the contents of /etc/skel (or, if they do, they only do it for BASH and maybe CSH). Then again, there's a reason I put quotation marks around "administrators".

Alternative Screening Methods

So, the fascists at TSA are trying to push the use of the backscatter scanners by making them the lesser of two evils. Basically, they've instructed their hoards of Barney Fifes to go so far down the path of invasiveness with their pat-downs as to qualify for sexual assault in any other context. They've done this to make the alternative to being scanned even more embarrassing and annoying than being run through the backscatter scanners.

I wonder, though: were I to wear a rubber gimp-suit to go through TSA screening, would they still need to grope or scan me? I mean, it's not like I'd be able to hide anything under such attire. With those things, can tell just how fit you are, just how hung you are ...hell, they can practically tell what your religion is. Certainly, there's no possibility of hiding a pack of sugar, let alone contraband or explosives.

But, it's not about that, really, is it? It's about showing the little people who's in power and that they're helpless to do anything about it.

Wasn't Me

I've said it before and I know I'll say it again, "I love StumbleUpon." On a semi-regular basis, they bring you real gems of "news of the weird". In this case, it was the story of a man busted for burglary who, upon vigorous search, was found to have had a mouse in his rectum.

No, I have no freaking clue why he'd have had a mouse in his rectum. Perhaps, the prior night, while stumbling through the dark from his bed to his bathroom, he fell on the mouse and it just ended up in there.

Still, were it me, I'd have to at least try to claim my innocence in the burglary. Perhaps I'd state, "clearly, the mouse was acting as driver and I was just his vehicle." Kinda like Disney's Ratatouille, but up the butt rather than yanking tufts of hair?

Logical EV Buyers

I read C|Net News on a fairly frequent basis. The articles are, generally, fairly concise and "accurate" by current web standards for publishing. They also seem to cover a wide variety of topics of technical interest - green-tech, online privacy, social media, etc.

Yesterday, a news article about GE's intentions to go heavily towards green-tech in their vehicle fleets was featured. The article's headline indicates that it's a move towards electric vehicles, but seems to focus more on hybrids like the Chevy Volt. That said, if EV and other "chicken-or-egg" green-tech propositions are to become reality, efforts like GE's will be necessary.

What's surprised me, at this point, is that a company like ZipCar isn't trying to work with power companies, EV vehicle manufacturers and municipalities to push EV into their own fleets. I mean, ZipCar's primary users are city-dwellers. ZipCars are, when awaiting subscriber-use, parked in specific, reserved spots throughout the service city. Seems almost a perfect context to deploy EVs and EV infrastructure.

Oh well: what do I know (I'm only a casual observer).

MILFs for Geeks

I remember seeing Kary Byron looking very pregnant in an episode of MythBusters, earlier this year. Today, while telecommuting, her new kid-oriented show came on. She's decidedly not pregnant, any more.

Got MILF?

So, I guess, at this point, Kari Byron is officially a MILF?

(More) Seen On TV

So, the days that I telecommute, I generally have the TV on, in the background, as I tap away at my laptop. I usually flip on the Fox 5 Morning News when I come down for the day. Then at 10, when that show goes off the air and switches to the dreadful Wendy Williams show (who the fuck is she blowing to get a TV spot???), I change over to NBC for the last hour of their morning show. Unfortunately, that consists of the only slightly less odious "Hoda and Kathy-Lee" segment.

Today, they were doing the whole "iHoda" thing (basically, a "what's on Hoda's iPod" segment). This is the embarrassing segment where they play some song that she has on her iPod. Invariably, the song is dreadfully awful. Definitely not the kind of music I would admit to listening to, least of all would I play it as some kind of pick of the day. Whatever: no accounting for taste.

They also then had some performance group on. Appeared to be four black early-teens doing a song and dance routine. I think the whole thing was supposed to be them performing their music, but really wasn't paying that close of attention to it. The music was awful enough that it caused me to look up to see what the hell they were doing on the show. It was not impressive. They were outfitted in suitably "urban" attire and bouncing about to some horrid piece of music. They were clearly (read, "poorly") lip-syncing to some awful piece of Autotuned garbage. Not sure if I was supposed to be impressed by their "singing", the music, the dancing or their stage-costumes. If I was, then I guess I was missing whatever it was that was supposed to impress me.

Oh well...

Hallmarks of SPAM

There are any number of attributes of an email that can tell you, within about half a second, that the contents are SPAM. It can be the from address. It can be the to address. It can be the subject line. It can be the greeting.

Today, I got one of those emails that begins with the greeting, "Hello: my dear"". Amusingly, this greeting was accompanied by an opening sentence that was trying to entice me into a "business opportunity."

I mean, even were the email legit, how serious could you take such a "business" missive if they start by calling you "Dear"?

*SO* Not Reassuring

Why is it that every time a manager tells me "all your jobs are safe" I think "time to start looking for a new gig"? Even if a manager is trying to allay anxieties that are stemming from something that is well and truly innocuous, it just tingles your spidey-senses all the more. I mean, historically, such "assurances" invariably act as precursors to negative employment actions. Personally, if there's nothing to fear, said managers should just keep quiet. Offering such reassurances just makes the more career-experienced individuals start looking for new work in earnest.

Don't They Learn

w00t! Can't wait till the new anti-smoking picture/labels are on cigarette packs. They look like collectible card images!!

I mean, other countries have tried this tactic and it's pretty much a failure. The images that, while admittedly horrible, are almost worth collecting just from the sheer comedy value.

Faux Pas?

When I walk into the restroom at work and someones in the middle of a (really loud) ass-splosion, I find it hard not to laugh. Usually, what prevents the laughter is that, by the time I can no longer hold the giggles in, the smell hits. Then, I'm too busy trying not to audibly retch.

I Has My Doubts

Why is it that this piece of spam makes me doubt that "Katy Perry Wants You". I'm pretty sure she has no idea of my existence.

Banned??

WTF Xbox Live? Banned due to too much quitting? You keep disconnecting from me. Assholes.

Where's Your Tent

Nothing to remind you of childhood summertimes quite like playing Halo: Reach online. Every so often, you get games filled with freaking campers (somedays, I swear it feels like I'm at a damned Boy Scouts jamboree). Awesome.

XBox Math

Today, on Reach, one of the daily achievement bonuses was based on getting 100 kills in online multiplayer matchmaking. No big deal. Even at my low kill-rate in that game mode (about 1.2 kills/minute), it's an easily achievable goal.

Well, I thought it was easy until I noticed that my achievement counts weren't incrementing at the same rate as my in-game kill rates. Basically, it was incrementing at a "kills-2" rate. So, if I scored 18 kills in a game, I only got credited 16 kills towards my daily achievement bonus.

WTF is up with that??

Not a Two Way Street

It's always kind of bothered me that various businesses and professionals felt it was ok to charge "missed appointment", "flight change" and other types of fees for things I did or failed to do yet, they could do the exact same thing and I was due nothing in return.

Today, I received a semi-intelligible automated phone call from the US Airways flight reservations/notification system. I'm going on a cruise in December and some of the flights I'd scheduled have had their numbers and times changed. Had I initiated such a change, it would have cost me $150. Yet, the airline can do whatever the hell it wants and I'm not due any flight-change refunds or the like.

Oh well. In the end, the changes weren't more than a few minutes on either end. It's just the principal.

In or Out

Ok, so, everyone knows that fast-food is bad for you. Everyone knows that fast-food has some questionable "food" properties (e.g., the various web pages dedicated to "how many years does it take for this McDonald's meal to decompose").

I think that, at this point, it's probably a safe bet that fast food is just as healthy for you coming in as it is going out. You can take that as either "your body's immediately better off as soon as it's pushed the fast food out" or as "what you're eating isn't much better than fecal matter."

Security Finetuning

Ok, I get the whole "least privileges" model. In fact, given the number of mouth-breathers I've had the "pleasure" to work with over the years, I'm a big fan of it. However, in order for it to work, you have to set it up right. If you're giving me ownership of one part of a larger system, then I should have full rights to that component. Disabling certain features I might need just doesn't make sense.

As a "ferinstance", why the fuck would the security settings on the iLO prevent "acquire" actions when a java crash will leave your session stuck open?? Nothing quite like trying to hop back on your server's "console" only to be told that it's still in use, elsewhere.

Merging of Ideas

If I could make one improvement to the Halo franchise, it would be to import the chainsaw-gun from Gears of War. I loves me some Halo, but, dayum: that chainsaw gun from Gears of War was wicked-violent.

Just Go Ahead and Groan, Now...

I wonder what they call it if you're not on time to a special education class?

Megamind (Short Review)

Ok, so, I've gotten used to setting a lower bar for Dreamworks animated features than I do for Pixar animated features. I mean, Pixar tends to be story/characters first and animation second (yet still manage to be top-notch on the animation) and Dreamworks tends to be story/characters as a reason for featuring animation. Dreamworks is also known for every movie featuring the Dreamworks animation smirk.

So, perhaps I went into Megamind with the bar set lower than I might for another CG-animation feature. That said, it was a surprisingly decent flick. Some really good animation (and some really subtle effects, too) and I don't really recall seeing "the smirk". The story was decent and you could reasonably empathize with the characters. Lots of decent slapstick and a decent amount of "for the grownups" jokes and sight-gags. And, in a break from recent movies, Will Farrel was acting as a character rather than as the caricature of himself he usually plays.

Oh... And it was yet another movie that does absolutely nothing to dispel the "creepy gingers" stigma.

Decent Sports Weekend

While they didn't win both of their weekend games, the Flyers managed to take three out of four possible points (one win and one overtime-loss)

The Eagles won their game.

The PSU Nittany Lions managed to bring home JoePa's 400th win.

Comm Errs at the 7Eleven

Most mornings, I need breakfast to get my day going. Overall, I try to get my breakfast at home, as what I can put together there tends to be better for me. However, some mornings, there's either not the time to put something together or there's not ingredients. On those mornings, if I'm actually working at my cubicle, I will either stop in at the 7Eleven near my office or one of the McD's on my commute-route.

Today, was a 7Eleven day. Most days, when I avail myself of 7Eleven for "food", I either go for the Jamaican spicy beef patties or one of the small hotdogs. That morning, there were no small hotdogs - only the large and jumbo dogs and corn dogs. So, I opted for one of the beef patties.

I paid for my stuff, got in my car and headed onward to my office. Upon getting my laptop set up, I commenced to opening my 7Eleven "bonanza". Much to my chagrin, my spicy beef pattie was, instead, one of the unwanted ginormous hotdogs. Oh well. At least I was only charged for the patty rather than the uber-dog. Still: : how does "spicy beef patty" get translated as "gargantuan hotdog", 7Eleven?

Does It Fly?

The best kind of poo is flingable-poo

Daylight Savings Time

It's too early to be this dark. Fuck you, time change.

Poor Advertising

The only message I can take from the new Mobile 7 commercials is that the phones suck too much to get engrossed in using them.

Act of Holiday Charity

I think for Christmas, I'll give all the street-people bluetooth headsets so that at least it will LOOK like they're talking to someone.

Illiterati

It strikes me that, since I've stopped traveling, I've pretty much stopped reading books.

Prolly Not A Coincidence

Just discovered that the color of blue that Penn State designates as the official "Penn State Blue" is the same as the official shade of blue used in US flags: Pantone 282

Weekend Go "Poof!"

Awesome is: trying to do some work over the weekend only to find that the server you need has failed.

Choices: I Has Them

I don't know which is worse: that the cats broke a $25 wine glass or that someone left it where it could be broken by curious cats.

Social Recursion Error

It seems like the less I go out, the less I want to go out. Given protracted breaks in socializing, when I do make the effort to be social, so many things elicit the "yeah, that's why I stopped going out" feeling.