Red Letter Day?

August 23, 2006Not particularly.  Two things of interest occurred, though.

First, I saw a man running up a hill with a weed eater, attempting to kill a small rabbit.  Luckily, slow often accompanies stupid.

Second, we have reached the end of the appearing, disappearing, reappearing files.  The file server decided that all the data wasn't there, but then it changed its mind and now its all back again.  Lucky, since it takes a LONG time to upload everything.

In other news, the carpet was worked on again.  The seam is still visible from certain angles, but it ought to wear down as we walk on it.

My car can go into fifth gear if I follow the following procedure: attain a speed of 65mph +/- 3mph and maintain this speed until I reach the top of a slight hill, fully depress the clutch, shift to neutral, release the clutch, wait for 3 seconds, fully depress clutch, shift to 5th gear, slowly SLOWLY slowly release clutch slowing additionally through friction zone.  With all this done just right, I can keep the transmission from grinding or making any noise or taps at all.  I just have to do it... carefully.

People are dumb about motorcycles.  For example, I'm tired of being told all I need is a helmet to be safe on a motorcycle.  Besides serious concentration and reponsible driving, safety gear should protect all of your body, not just your head.  Almost everyone I've talked to after the safety class has been recommending that I buy a sports bike and that I skimp on the safety gear.  If and when I do get a motorcycle, it will be  a bike I can learn on easily, and I'm not going to buy a bike until I can afford the protective gear with it.  When I mentioned it'd probaby cost at least $500 for the gear, the room erupted with jeers and comments about how a helmet and jeans are fine.  And one more thing... don't be the one guy in the room talking about how dangerous motorcycles are if you also like to share your stories about going 110mph and passing people airborne on hills.

Popped Collar

August 20, 2006

To alleviate some fears, I only approve of popped collars on children under 3yrs.  Sorry, Chris J.

Long and Slow

August 19, 2006 I didn't have a particularly stimulating or productive week.  My car's still acting up, and work was irritating.

The problem with working with someone that adopts the "I look disorganized and I have a lot of piles, but I always know whever everything is" is two-fold.  The first part is that they're lying.  They don't know where everything is.  They might know which pile it's in, but more likely they know it's "over here somewhere."  The second part is that they aren't always around.  Take, for example, a coworker that you work with for a couple months.  Then, they leave and you realize how shoddy the records are and disorganized the files are.  Let's say, for example, that you have many baskets, each with a particular kind of fruit in it.  Say that you can't open the baskets, but folder for each basket that outlines all of the basket's details including which kind of fruit is in it.  Now, if only one type of fruit can be in each basket, wouldn't you be surprised to find two types of fruit listed in the same basket's folder?  I got to spend time trying to figure out what was misplaced, where it ought to go, what was just mislabeled, what was correct, and why these records weren't in the summary chart.  Alas, it took the better part of a today to fix 20 folders.  The next day was spent making a new system that would avoid this problem in the future. 
Anyway... it was kinda lame, and I didn't get done was I was hoping to.  Hopefully next week will go better.  In the meantime, I'll just enjoy spending time with the wife and baby.

Ironical

August 13, 2006Today the pastor used a tablet PC to display sermon notes as he wrote them.  The sermon was about distraction.  I've never seen him use a tablet before and he only used it for the first point.  I found it distracting.

To answer the driving time question, I made the trip in 41:20 at 75mph.  That's right.  Going 5mph over the speed limit saved me 1 minute, 20 seconds.  That's an average of 69.8mph (compared to 67.5, a 2.3mph increase).  Hmmh... anyone surprised that attempting to go 5mph faster doesn't actually raise your average speed 5mph?

Live and Learn and ....

August 12, 2006And then get luvs!  We did.  We tried several types of diapers.  We finally settled on Huggies and Pampers because they were stretchy and they rarely leaked.  As we started trying to lower our expenses, we decided to try out Luvs.  They're much cheaper, and we hadn't tried them yet.  Well, we have been pleased with the quality.  The leak a little more, but not too much.  They aren't as stretchy, but they are a great brand for the price.

The car is giving me trouble again.  Less than two years ago, the 5th gear stopped connecting.  I had to have the transmission rebuilt, and it's doing it again.  I wanted to have someone check it out this weekend, but everyone's closed.  I can drive in 4th for a while (3rd is rated for 85mph), but it's still irritating.  The lower gear will burn more gas, for starters, which already costs me $10-$15 a day.  A DAY!  I guess we'll see what happens.  I'll just drive her until I can get someone to take a look at it, I guess.  I'm tired of spending lots of money.  No matter how much we cut back, things just come up.  I know this isn't unusual and I should get used to it, but it's hard to accept that what seems like enough money never really will be.  Alas.