Ethereal Madness

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T00:37:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone!

Merry Christmas

2010-12-25T14:53:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone!

Windows Advice

2010-10-06T17:09:00.003-07:00

I have learned one important thing about Windows 7 in my time using it. I recently upgraded my laptop from Vista Home to 7 Professional. I own a license to install the program, but I have not been able to find the receipt for purchasing, which also contains the key. I installed the OS anyway, just as a trial version, hoping to find the key in the meantime. I found a trick online to reset the 30 day activation time window, so whenever I thought of it, I would reset the time, so that I would always be within the window.

Apparently it is only possible to reset that counter 3 times, giving you 120 days to activate the program. I did not realize that it had a finite number of times. I found the part in the registry where that counter is saved and changed the value in hopes of being able to reset again. That worked, in the sense that it no longer asks me to activate. I failed miserably in that Windows now thinks that it is counterfeit and constantly has to remind me of the benefits of purchasing legal software and that I might be a victim of software piracy.

So the lesson in all of this is simple: Don't lose your Windows CD key.

Random Fact of the Day

2010-08-06T14:29:00.000-07:00

The five-trillionth digit of pi is 2.

Ouch

2010-05-06T11:47:00.000-07:00

Dow down almost 800 points this morning on news that Greek government employees are violently rioting at the prospect of taking pay cuts and get a week or two less paid vacation per year.

More Global WarmingCooling

2010-05-03T23:44:00.002-07:00

Winter storm warning and heightened avalanche risks sound pretty usual around here during the winter, but not in May. High temperatures in the 40s, snow in the passes, and gusts of wind creating blizzard-like conditions are a little unusual for the middle of spring. It must be global warming. If Al Gore would unleash his warming invention on this area we might be able to enjoy some spring weather.

Fire Rainbow

2010-04-26T14:29:00.000-07:00

Fire rainbows, also called circumhorizontal arcs, are quite rare and very cool looking. Here are a handful of images I've found, clicking on them will take you to the sites I harvested them from.

I have no memory of seeing one of these myself, but if I ever get a picture of one it will be posted here as well.

Fun Banner Ads

2010-04-19T23:02:00.002-07:00

I was browsing through the past posts made on this blog trying to remember what all was there when I saw on ad at the top that stood out to me. Basically crude drawing with the caption something like "Use one weird old tip to shrink your belly a little every day." I wasn't going to click on the ad to see exactly what they were trying to sell me, but I guess it costs much more than someone like me has to spend. If someone eats less junk and exercises more I see no reason why they shouldn't be able to "shrink their belly."

TBQ Update

2010-04-13T07:51:00.001-07:00

There are now 4 days until District Finals at Northwest University. Make good use of the remaining days in order to do your best at the last meet of the year.

National Tax Freedom Day

2010-04-08T03:34:00.000-07:00

Happy Tax Freedom Day to everyone. According to the Tax Foundation the average American pays 26.89% of their income in taxes. This naturally means that 26.89% of the year is spent earning money for the government rather than yourself. At 3:34AM this morning 26.89% of the year has passed, so assuming the government took all of your taxes at the beginning of the year, today would be the day that you are able to start keeping your wages for yourself. Those living in Alaska get to celebrate Tax Freedom Day early, as the lower state taxes allow them to celebrate on March 26. Connecticut residents have higher taxes and therefore cannot celebrate until April 27. See information for all 50 states at the TaxFoundation.org site.

TBQ Update

2010-04-06T14:50:00.000-07:00

There are now 11 days until District Finals at Northwest University. Study hard and keep up the good work.

Peeps

2010-04-05T13:09:00.000-07:00

What do you do with all of those Peeps that are on sale now that Easter is over. Some people like to eat them, most of us can’t stand them. So some make elaborate sculptures with them. The Washington Post hosts a sculpture competition every year and posted the 38 top entries. Why 38? Maybe they had 38 entries and didn’t want anyone to feel left out; maybe 38 entries were worth viewing and therefore all of those were shared. See the top entrants at the Washington Post site here.

An Alligator Ate Your Order

2010-03-31T12:03:00.001-07:00

This is what one man was told when he called Amazon wondering why his package hadn’t arrived by the projected delivery date. The rep on the phone said it may have been eaten by another animal, but was sure that it was eaten en route and would therefore never be delivered. This was news to the shipping company which tracked the package to a delivery truck that was on its way to deliver the package. Read the full account here.

TBQ Update

2010-03-30T15:47:00.002-07:00

There are now 18 days until District Finals at Northwest University. Study hard and keep up the good work.

Waiting For The Rest of the Story

2010-03-30T15:24:00.002-07:00

The government has a new definition for WMD. This now includes "improvised explosive devices with explosive formed projectiles." If this is indeed the case, those who claim there aren’t, nor ever were, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are full of crap. Afghanistan also has a bunch there too.

This topic came up because a group of guys out east are charged with terrorist plots of trying to kill police officers. If this story is indeed true, these guys need to be locked up, but since the police kept changing their story when sending in a full strike team to arrest these guys, I have no reason to believe their story. A neighbor said, "Helicopters and planes in the air, and guns drawn everywhere. At first, they said it was meth, then guns, then bombs." All three are different, I don’t see how they could be confused with each other, and if the officers on the scene honestly did not know why they were there, they probably should not have been there.

If the official story given is indeed true, these guys are scum who need to be locked up. Read the full story here on the Chicago CBS site.

Weird Weather

2010-03-29T17:07:00.003-07:00

So far today we've had rain, lightning and thunder, hail, and strong winds. The temperatures are quite a bit cooler than normal, the day is wetter than usual, and the global warming nuts still believe that we're going to roast to death.

Unofficial League IV Scores

2010-03-29T15:54:00.003-07:00

Devon - 170 - Championship
Phillip - 75 - Challenger
Iva - 30 - Challenger
Melissa - 15 - Championship
Stuart - 10 - Championship
Liana - 5 - Challenger
Elizabeth - 0 - Challenger

I'll make any updates or corrections needed when I actually get the official results.

Earth Hour?

2010-03-28T23:24:00.002-07:00

Did anyone celebrate earth hour this year? Yeah, me neither.

Congrats to the TBQ Teams

2010-03-27T23:19:00.000-07:00

Good job today everyone. Your hard work is paying off. We have some work to do for the District meet on the 17th, but it is mostly review for all of you. I should have scores posted here soon.

Gov. Gregoire Threatens a 20% Cut

2010-03-26T09:20:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, Gregoire threatened the state congress that if they could not come up with a plan to raise enough taxes to cover the projected $2.8 billion budget shortfall, she would start cutting state programs by 20%. Read the full story here on the KOMO site. If you read most of the comments on the article, most people seem to like the 20% cut idea. I consider that 20% cut a step in the right direction, which should be follows very quickly with another 20% cut. Unfortunately, she is only threatening to cut pet projects in order to scare the congressmen, there is little chance of actually adopting any form of fiscal responsibility on her part.

TBQ Update

2010-03-23T13:01:00.000-07:00

Just a reminder to all TBQ people, Chapter 12 & 13 for Thursday. Also, League IV is THIS Saturday in Redmond.

HealthDeathcare

2010-03-22T07:24:00.001-07:00

The people screaming that we need Obamacare will get their wish...in four years. Thankfully there is still a chance that the Supreme Court will read part of this bill and then deem it unconstitutional.

School Supplies

2010-03-18T15:51:00.003-07:00

It seems that the Department of Education is stocking up. This time it's not computers, or textbooks, or even pencils and paper. This month the Educational Department is stocking up on short-barrel Remington 870 Police shotguns. According to FBO.gov, an order was placed for twenty-seven 12-gauge variants of the shotgun. They bought these particular guns because they "are designated as the only shotguns authorized for ED based on compatibility with ED existing shotgun inventory, certified armor and combat training and protocol, maintenance, and parts."
In an age where school officials have virtually no ability to discipline students, short barrel shotguns seem like a bit excessive. Maybe the department is planning a hostile takeover of a number of private schools in order to increase the average test scores of failing school districts.

Google Maps

2010-03-16T13:43:00.001-07:00

What happens when a deer crosses the road in front of the Google Maps vehicle?

Click the image to find out. But yes, the deer did survive the encounter. Search for Google Street View Finds to find many more interesting things seen by the Google cams.

TBQ Update

2010-03-16T13:17:00.000-07:00

Just a reminder to all TBQ people, Chapter 11 for Thursday. Also, 11 days until League 4.

Facebook Funnies I

2010-03-15T08:51:00.002-07:00

Pastor Jeremy has to be one of the most random people I know. He's also one of the most annoyingly extroverted people, which makes a great combination. I don't see him very often but he posts on Facebook almost hourly. Here's one of his more memorable posts in recent weeks:

Click the image to read the comments that followed. I will be keeping an eye on his wall for more fun things to share with the world.

Great Rube Goldberg Machine

2010-03-12T16:35:00.004-08:00

At roughly 3 minutes 20 seconds long, this is a great machine to watch. The band literally spent months setting up and testing the machine in order to get it to run in time with the music. They did set the machine up so that they could do a cut in the camera shot if necessary to splice two takes together, but it wasn't necessary.

Here's the YouTube link, and yes, they even have 1080P available. I found this video originally linked from the Death Pill blog.

Thursday Practice + Sunday

2010-03-12T01:20:00.002-08:00

Thanks to Stewart and Phillip for showing up today. To those that didn't, you probably had a good excuse. I'll see most of you on Sunday for our morning That The World May Know videos, and some review of material.

Idaho Wants Your Business

2010-03-10T16:49:00.000-08:00

Unlike Washington and Oregon, the government of Idaho wants businesses to locate in their state. Governor Otter wrote a letter to the businesses of Washington, inviting them to relocate in Idaho to avoid the oppressive tax increases currently in the planning stages. Here’s a quote from his letter:

Businesses small and large are the backbone of Idaho’s economy. They employ our citizens, who in turn can provide for their families. Businesses and individuals also pay reasonable taxes that enable State and local governments to provide such essential services as public schools and public safety. And make no mistake: Any business that doesn’t pass along its operating costs to consumers – including their tax bills – doesn’t stay in business for long.

If the losers in Olympia would realize this, our state would become a much better place to work and do business. In the mean time, we can only hope for some change in November, or find a good real estate agent in another state, like Idaho. Read the whole letter from Governor Otter Here.

The Hard Disk Crusher

2010-03-09T15:32:00.000-08:00

The Hard Disk Crusher is a nifty item I saw in an ad and thought I'd share. The idea is to physically destroy the drive, rather than just trying to erase the data it contains. I don't think it's 100% guaranteed to destroy your data as a team was able to recover data off of the hard drives that burned up in the reentry of the Colombia space shuttle disaster. However, this should be a great tool for opening those impossibly hard nuts.

TBQ Update

2010-03-09T15:15:00.000-08:00

Just a reminder to all TBQ people, Chapter 10 for Thursday. Also, 18 days until League 4.

Hurt Locker?

2010-03-08T14:46:00.002-08:00

I really have no idea how someone chooses one movie over another when voting for awards. There should be some set of rigid criteria that determines many of such awards. That being said, I have no memory of ever hearing of or seeing anything about "Hurt Locker". I don't go to very many movies, so I don't see very many trailers on the big screen, nor to I watch live TV on a regular basis. But I'd at least think that if a movie was so amazing that it needed to be granted the designation of "Best Movie of 2009" that I would have at least heard of it before today.

Gotta Love Facebook

2010-03-08T09:56:00.001-08:00

It may be especially true for Facebook, but it’s also very true for the internet at a whole. Anything you post online can probably be seen by anyone with internet access, anywhere in the world.

When posting things about someone on Facebook, make sure that they are not your friend, or they will be able to see it as well. Even if the person was not your friend, one of your friends may show them so keeping secrets is nearly impossible on the interwebs. This is another item from Oddee, although I will not post the direct link due to other content advertised on that particular page.

Failed Warnings

2010-03-01T12:46:00.000-08:00

I know that warnings have become necessary in our lawsuit-happy culture, but they still go overboard when trying to warn people about potential dangers.

Click image for larger

I’m pretty sure that Parker here is not old enough to drive and so it really should not matter how much this canine fellow drinks. Click here for oddee.com where I found this image. Be warned that not everything on the linked site is guaranteed to be family friendly.

Renewed Commitment to Updates!

2010-03-01T10:37:00.001-08:00

Starting this week I will be having content posted here regularly. What does regularly mean? In this case it means a minimum of one new posting per week, most likely on a Monday, although not always the case. There is actually content in the queue so I am working with a cushion to ensure that I can make this renewed commitment to regular posting.

You may also have noticed that the tbq.net site does not exist at the moment and actually has not for a few months. So for the time being the URL is forwarding to this page, so for that reason there will also be [more] TBQ related content posted here, so stay tuned.

Weird Suggestion

2010-02-23T21:32:00.003-08:00

So I finally get around to getting a Blogger account setup and start building a profile. It seems that I had a partial profile built already, it shows that I'm already following a blog. It may be a suggestion by Blogger, based on the keyword contents of the Ethereal Madness blog over the last few years. This blog is for Vote Earth, which is the official blog of Earth Hour, arranged by World Wildlife Fund. Neither I, nor any other members of this blog, support WWF or any other similar "green" organization that seeks to destroy our standard of living to carry out their political agenda. I guess that's about it for my post.

Weird Ads

2010-01-31T00:12:00.001-08:00

I open a new browser, which takes me to this page, as it is my homepage. I have this as my homepage for a few reasons. Primarily, if I see the same update over and over again I might be inspired to write something new. Second, I see if anyone posted a new comment since I don’t regularly check the email where the notifications are sent. And I sometimes just like to see what sort of ads Google decides to put on the page. Tonight’s surprise came when I see that there are 4 separate ads, but only one of them was in English, and the other three Hebrew.

I’m not 100% certain, but I’m pretty sure that of the very small percentage of people who this blog would appeal to, and the other small percentage of people who actually take time to look here from time to time, pretty much all of them are comfortable with the English language. I don’t recall anything that I’ve posted that would appeal particularly to the people who understand Hebrew, but not English.

I guess I could take the time to browse through translated, local newspapers from around the world and write random entries about them. I’m sure I could come up with a semi-informed opinion about the inner workings of Taipei’s city council, or what the latest Parisian, mafia member uses as fashion accessories to compliment their various firearms.

That all seems like a lot of work though, and I neglect things like this enough as it is. I did get a check in the mail this afternoon for $100.57 from Google as payment for my Adsense impressions. That alone might be enough to inspire me to write more and try to attract readers. We’ll have to see.

Your Pets Hate the Earth

2010-01-14T22:50:00.001-08:00

This is a few weeks old, but still a great read. Apparently you can help save the planet by buying a Humvee and then using it to run over your neighbor’s dog. Dogs have huge carbon footprints primarily due to the amount of meat and meat by-products they require to live a healthy life. If anyone cares about junk science like this they should take the moral highroad and shoot all of those obnoxious, barking dogs in their neighborhood. You can read the full Yahoo news here.

Windows 7

2009-12-02T10:08:00.000-08:00

So it’s just my luck that the week I get my computer completely functional, I get the opportunity to buy a copy of Windows 7 for $30. This was a student rate that only requires you to have a .edu email address to register through Microsoft’s “Ultimate Steal” program.

Windows 7 is what Windows Vista should have been. I hope that it lives up to its hype. But either way, I would like to have an OS that will allow me to fully utilize more than 3.25GB of RAM and DirectX 10/11.

The copy I have is only an upgrade license rather than the full license, however, as long as you have a legit copy of Windows XP or Vista it should work without issue. I just reformatted my hard drive to have a clean instillation of Windows 7, and I will know later today if it actually works or if I’ll have to reinstall Windows XP so that I can install 7 on top of it.

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T01:00:00.001-08:00

Title sums it all up.

It's that time again...

2009-11-10T01:24:00.005-08:00

...for a new computer! My desktop has been causing me grief for a while now and I finally decided that enough is enough and that I was going to build a new computer. The final key that helped me decided that now was the time was a donation from Aaron of the wreckage of his last computer. After playing with it for a while I realized that the CPU was good, as well as the RAM. The motherboard is dead, as well as the 400GB hard drive that I tried using. I few days of research led me to the DFI Blood Iron P45 T2RS motherboard, actually I liked the X48 better as it had full speed Crossfire and Firewire, but the extra $75 wasn't worth it to me.

My computer was almost top of the line when I built it in 2005, which makes it a dinosaur in computer years. Four video cards, a burnt out motherboard, and three CPUs later, I've finally decided that its days as my primary machine are over. I'm currently in the process of taking the hard drive and copying it onto a virtual computer, so that I can use that particular setup whenever I need something off of it, rather than just keeping the machine around anymore; it's time for it to go to that great recycling center in China.

So the new computer is clock-for-clock 63% faster than my Athlon 64 4000+ that I've been using for the last 2 years. It is also a quad core Q6600, which means that it can multitask much better than a single core, which is great if anyone has ever seen the 75 processes that I'm usually running. Throw in 4 gigs of DDR2-1066 RAM that I cannibalized from my server, my Radeon 4850 that I'm recycling from the desktop, my Audigy X-Fi Platinum sound card also from the desktop, my Thermalright Ultra-120 extreme cooler, and a random hard drive and I'm good to go. I'm still waiting for the proper mounting bracket to arrive so I can attach the cooler to the new motherboard, and then I'll be good to go, Yes I am recycling my Quantum case, I like it too much to let 30KG of steel elegance just go to waste. I might replace some of the fans with colored, glowing ones, but I haven't got that far yet.

Ranma ½ Chapter Guide

2009-10-27T21:22:00.006-07:00

I was looking for a chart comparing the English version of Ranma 1/2 manga volumes verses the Japanese volumes. Not finding one anywhere, I started making my own. The reason for this is because the 407 chapters are spread across 38 volumes in Japan, and only 36 here in the US. This Ranma ½ chapter list is made possible by the King County library system and random scanlation sites. Thanks to some help, the table is now formatted correctly for easy viewing.

Chapter	Title	Japanese Volume	American Volume
01	Here's Ranma	1	1
02	Ranma's Secret	1	1
03	I Hate Man!	1	1
04	Never, Never, Never	1	1
05	To The Tree-Borne Kettle-Girl	1	1
06	Body and Soul	1	1
07	You'll Understand Soon Enough	1	1
08	Because There's a Girl He Likes	1	1
09	You're Cute When You Smile	2	2
10	The Hunter	2	2
11	Bread Feud	2	2
12	Showdown	2	2
13	A Bad Cut	2	2
14	Who Says You're Cute	2	2
15	The Transformation of Ryoga	2	2
16	He's Got a Beef	2	2
17	Kodachi, The Black Rose	2	2
18	The Love of the Black Rose	3	2
19	Take Care of My Sister	3	2
20	I'll See You Lose	3	2
21	Hot Competition	3	2
22	I Give Up	3	2
23	Darling Charlotte	3	2
24	A Kiss in the Rink	3	2
25	Lips at a Loss	3	2
26	Lips at War	3	3
27	I'll Never Let Go	4	3
28	Burning the Bridges	4	3
29	Ryoga Explodes!	4	3
30	The Waters of Love	4	3
31	Kiss of Death	4	3
32	You I Love	4	3
33	Akane Gets Shampooed	4	3
34	Shampoo Cleans Up	4	3
35	Formula #911	4	3
36	Bie Liao (Goodbye)	4	3
37	Looking for a Weak Spot	5	4
38	Weak Spot-Found	5	4
39	Cat Hell	5	4
40	Cat-Fu	5	4
41	You'd Have Kissed Anybody?	5	4
42	Shampoo Rides Again	5	4
43	Attack of the Wild Mousse	5	4
44	The Martial Arts Magic Show	5	4
45	Cat Tongue Got You?	5	4
46	The Phoenix Pill	5	4
47	All's Fair at the Fair	5	4
48	War of the Melons	6	4
49	Naval Engagement	6	4
50	Kitten of the Sea	6	5
51	Care to Join Me?	6	5
52	Training Meals	6	5
53	The Breaking Point	6	5
54	The Immortal Man	6	5
55	Fast Break	6	5
56	The Way of Tea	6	5
57	Meet Miss Satsuki	6	5
58	Proposal Accepted	6	5
59	It's Fast or It's Free	7	5
60	Eyes on the Prize	7	5
61	Noodles, Anyone?	7	5
62	I Won't Eat It!	7	5
63	The Evil Wakes	7	6
64	He's Something Else	7	6
65	Bathhouse Battle	7	6
66	Moonlight Serenade	7	6
67	The Wrath of Happosai	7	6
68	The Scent of a Woman	7	6
69	Fathers Know Best	7	6
70	Instant Spring	8	6
71	No Need For Ranma	8	6
72	The Destroyer Strikes	8	6
73	Just One More Kiss	8	6
74	Wherefore Art Thou, Romeo?	8	7
75	Romeo? Romeo? Romeo?	8	7
76	Not Your Typical Juliet	8	7
77	A Kiss to the Victor	8	7
78	Quest for the Hidden Spring	8	7
79	The Touble with Girls' Locker Rooms	8	7
80	From the Spring, Springs a Message	8	7
81	The Way the Cookie Crumbles	9	7
82	Negative Feelings	9	7
83	Take Me Out to the Bathtub	9	7
84	…I Ate the Whole Thing	9	7
85	"Okonomiyaki" Means "I Love You"	9	8
86	Saucy Reply	9	8
87	Ukyo's Secret	9	8
88	Ryoga vs. Ukyo	9	8
89	Lover Letters in the Sauce	9	8
90	Ryoga's What?!	9	8
91	At Long Last…the Date!	9	8
92	Happosai Days Are Here Again	10	8
93	One Moment to Love	10	8
94	I Won't Fall in Love!	10	8
95	The Abduction of…Akane?	10	8
96	Duck, Ranma, Duck!	10	8
97	Akane Becomes a Duck	10	9
98	Fowl Play	10	9
99	The Happiest Mousse	10	9
100	Tsubasa Kurenai Busts Loose!	10	9
101	Lunchtime Lunacy	10	9
102	The Perfect Match	10	9
103	Ryoga, Come Home	11	9
104	Oh, Brother!	11	9
105	Get Lost, Yoiko!	11	9
106	The Ultimate Technique	11	9
107	Get the Secret Scroll!	11	9
108	The Fire-Burst of Terror!	11	9
109	Embraceable You	11	10
110	Hold Me Close	11	10
111	Akane's Power-Up!	11	10
112	Super Badminton	11	10
113	Serious Side Effects	11	10
114	The Return of the Principal	12	10
115	Journey Into the Principal's Office	12	10
116	The Principal of the Thing	12	10
117	One Hairy Day	12	10
118	Shear Folly	12	10
119	Gonna Make You Tardy!	12	10
120	The Soap of Happiness	12	11
121	Cupids, Draw Back Your Bow	12	11
122	Don't Follow Me	12	11
123	Who Do You Love?	12	11
124	Give Me a Little Hug	12	11
125	The Legendary Moxibustion of Evil	13	11
126	The World's Weakest Man	13	11
127	Weak for Life?!	13	11
128	The Valley of Moxibustion	13	11
129	Training in the Spiral of Hell	13	11
130	The Inflammable Man	13	11
131	The Roar of Heavan	13	12
132	The Great Rematch	13	12
133	St. Happosai	13	12
134	Burn, Happy, Burn	13	12
135	The Paper Chase	13	12
136	Ranma Reborn	14	12
137	Who Will Bell the Cat?	14	12
138	Kitty Takes a Bride	14	12
139	Swim Like a Hammer	14	12
140	Courage Under Water	14	12
141	Step Outside	14	12
142	The Mark of the Gods	14	13
143	Face Off!	14	13
144	The Mark of the Pig	14	13
145	Akane Guesses the Secret	14	13
146	Santa's Little Disciples	14	13
147	When You Wish upon a Sword	15	13
148	May I Cut In?	15	13
149	The Final Wish	15	13
150	The King Is Wild	15	13
151	Never Bet Your Live	15	13
152	Put on a Poker Face	15	13
153	The Virtues of Training	15	13
154	Target: Pigtail	15	14
155	Let Your Hair Down	15	14
156	The Whisker's Secret	15	14
157	Hair Raising	15	14
158	Let's Go to the Hot	16	14
159	Screamin' at the Hot Springs!	16	14
160	Three-Leg Scramble	16	14
161	Hot Bath!	16	14
162	Ranma Give Up?!	16	14
163	The Final Choice	16	14
164	A Goal Too Far	16	14
165	Kung Fu Stew	16	15
166	Bad Manors	16	15
167	La Miserable	16	15
168	Le Karate De Foie Gras	16	15
169	Bathroom Training	17	15
170	Who Masters What?	17	15
171	Dinner Wars: The Final Course!	17	15
172	Do Not Dessert Me	17	15
173	Hand-Me-Down Ranma (US) / I Don't Want Ranma! (J)	17	15
174	The Terrible Truth! (US) / The Truth Is Confessed! (J)	17	15
175	Nabiki's Feelings	17	15
176	I'm the Victim Here! (US) / I'm Sorry Ranma (J)	17	15
177	I'm Sorry, Akane	17	15
178	Maze of Love (US) / The Maze of Love and Revenge (J)	17	15
179	The Curse of the Scroll (US) / It's Scary When You Turn Cursed Pages (J)	17	16
180	Spring Demon (US) / The Demon That Came From Jusenkyo (J)	18	16
181	The Demon's Tale (US) / The Demon's True Identity (J)	18	16
182	Find Akane (US) / Where is Akane? (J)	18	16
183	S.W.A.T. (Save Widdle Akane Team) (US) / Rescue Team for Akane (J)	18	16
184	The Watery Grave (US) / Rock Above Water (J)	18	16
185	The Geyser Traps (US) / Beyond the Valley of the Eruptions Traps (J)	18	16
186	Boiling Retailiation (US) / Strike Back with Hot Water (J)	18	16
187	The Snap of Elastic (US) / Sure Fire! Pantyhose Meteor Kick (J)	18	16
188	What's in a Name? (US) / Your Name is... (J)	18	16
189	Back to the Freak-ture (US) / The Time Traveling Old Freak (Part 1) (J)	18	16
190	And Back and Back and Back (US) / The Time Traveling Old Freak (Part 2) (J)	18	16
191	Melonhead (US) / The Beachside Amnesiac (J)	19	17
192	The Honor of Party Beach (US) / The Beachside Pur-Suitor (J)	19	17
193	Catcher in the Rind (US) / The Beachside Island (J)	19	17
194	The Sauce of Ten Years (US) / That's What Friends are for! (J)	19	17
195	For the Love of the Sauce (US) / For Love of the Sauce (J)	19	17
196	The Truth About the Truth (US) / The Terrible Truth (J)	19	17
197	The Honeymoon Period (US) / Here Comes Mr. and Mrs. Ranma Saotome (J)	19	17
198	Please Hate Me (US) / Ten Things I Hate About Ukyo (J)	19	17
199	Nightmare on Hot Springs Street (US) / Curse of the Hot Spring Town (J)	19	17
200	Paper Dolls of Love (US) / Paper People Love (J)	19	17
201	The Pill of Obedience (US) / Master-Student Secret Pill (J)	19	17
202	The Lion's Roar (US) / The Shishihokodan (J)	20	18
203	Prelude to Defeat (US) / Prelude to Failure (J)	20	18
204	Unlucky Blow (US) / Bad Things Happen (J)	20	18
205	Emotional Impact (US) / Defeating Depression (J)	20	18
206	Lion Versus Tiger! (US) / Fight! Lion vs Tiger (J)	20	18
207	The Weight of Victory (US) / A Gravitating Victory (J)	20	18
208	New Year's Curse (US) / The Curse on New Year's Eve (J)	20	18
209	Ring Proposal (US) / Do Not Ask for Whom the Bell Tolls (J)	20	18
210	The Plum and the Prune (US) / The Old Man and the Plum Blossoms (J)	20	18
211	Sibling Warfare (US) / Sibling Rivalry (J)	20	18
212	The Scandal Breaks! (US) / Waves of Rumors (J)	20	18
213	When Daddy Was Strong (US) / Daddy, You're the Strongest Man in the World (J)	21	19
214	Time to Leave the Nest (US) / When the Chick Leaves the Nest (J)	21	19
215	The Cradle From Hell (US) / Hell's Cradle (J)	21	19
216	Mark of the Cherry Blossom (US) / The Cherry-Blossom Marked Man! (J)	21	19
217	Akane's Feelings	21	19
218	Storm of Petals (US) / A Storm of Flowers (J)	21	19
219	L! O! V! E! (US) / Cheerleader's First Love (J)	21	19
220	Cheerleading for Love (US) / Cheerleading by Love (J)	21	19
221	Win One for the Lover (US) / Victory of Love?! (J)	21	19
222	Equals in Love (US) / Evenly Matched Love (J)	21	19
223	Love vs. Love (US) / Seriously Intense Love (J)	21	19
224	Love Always Wins (US) / True Love Prevails... in the End (J)	22	20
225	Ranma Meets His Mother!? (US) / Genma's Mysterious Secret (J)	22	20
226	A Man's Vow (US) / The Promise of a Man (J)	22	20
227	Risky Reunion (US) / Walking the Katana's Edge (J)	22	20
228	Even If It's Just a Glance (US) / Sunday in the Park with Ranma (J)	22	20
229	Mother and Son…Together (US) / A Dream Deferred (J)	22	20
230	Sudden Hate!! (US) / A Turn of Emotion (J)	22	20
231	Say You Love Me!! (US) / Say "I Love You!" (J)	22	20
232	Love's Counterstrike (US) / Love Reverberation (J)	22	20
233	Who Loves Who? (US) / True Confession (J)	22	20
234	The Phantom Lingerie (US) / The Incredible Tale of the Unstealable Panties (J)	22	20
235	Pantyhose Taro Returns! (US) / The Attack of Pantyhose Taro (J)	23	21
236	The Black Secret (US) / The Secret Black Weapon (J)	23	21
237	Hot Water Fortress (US) / Out the Frying Pan and Into Hot Water (J)	23	21
238	Tentacular Spectacular! (US) / Fight! Defeat the Tentacles (J)	23	21
239	Stomperella (US) / Steps by the Seashore (J)	23	21
240	The Fairy Tale Ending (US) / Cinderella's Favor (J)	23	21
241	The Violence of Cooking (US) / Creative Cooking (J)	23	21
242	The Carp of Misery (US) / New Relationship (J)	23	21
243	Carpy Deum (US) / A Terrible Relationship (J)	23	21
244	Quit Carping (US) / An Uncontrollable Relationship (J)	23	21
245	One Punch (US) / The Warsuit (J)	23	21
246	The Guest at the Cat Café (US) / Guests at the Cat Café (J)	24	22
247	The Animal Kingdom (US) / The Wild Animal Dynasty (J)	24	22
248	The Lost Treasure (US) / Ranma's Lost Manhood (J)	24	22
249	Battle of the Hot Springs Women! (US) / Ranma vs Herb - A Woman's Fight in the Open-Air Bath (J)	24	22
250	Race to Treasure Mountain (US) / The Pursuit to Horaison (J)	24	22
251	Death on Treasure Mountain (US) / Death on Horaison (J)	24	22
252	The Tragedy of the Pail (US) / The Tragedy of the Ladle (J)	24	22
253	The Waterfall of Secret Treasure Revealed! (US) / Behold! The Open-Water Waterfall (J)	24	22
254	An Ever-Elusive Treasure (US) / Distant Manhood (J)	24	22
255	The Confession of Rage! (US) / Herb's Angry Confession (J)	24	22
256	Rise Up, Ranma! (US) / Stand Up, Ranma! (J)	24	22
257	A Man Again! (US) / Ranma! Return to Manhood! (J)	25	23
258	Welcome Home, Ranma!	25	23
259	The Ultimate Teacher! (US) / The New Teacher is Certain Death (J)	25	23
260	The Eight Mysterious Treasures (US) / The Mysterious Happo Five-Yen Satsu (J)	25	23
261	The World's Most Powerful Woman (US) / The Most Dangerous Woman in History (J)	25	23
262	Go for the Pressure Points! (US) / Push Those Pressure Points! Now! (J)	25	23
263	The Formation from Hell!	25	23
264	The Eight Treasures Change Return (US) / Happo No-Yen Coin Return (J)	25	23
265	The Ultimate Health Regimen (US) / Ultimate Health Technique (J)	25	23
266	Akane's Journey	25	23
267	Recovered Memories (US) / Reawakened Memories (J)	25	23
268	The Secret of the Forest (US) / Secret of the Strange Forest (J)	26	24
269	The Water of Life (US) / Water of Life (J)	26	24
270	In the Shade of the Forest (US) / In the Tree-Shade of the Forest (J)	26	24
271	See Ya, Akane (US) / Bye-Bye, Akane (J)	26	24
272	The King of Beasts Emerges! (US) / The King of Rare Beasts Appears! (J)	26	24
273	The Fury of the Orochi! (US) / The Serpent is Angry (J)	26	24
274	The Eighth Head	26	24
275	Take Care of Her (US) / Take Care of Akane (J)	26	24
276	Blow Your Horn! (US) / Blow the Horn-Whistle! (J)	26	24
277	Let's Go Home (US) / Let's Go Home Together! (J)	26	24
278	These Words I Send to You (US) / Gift Words (J)	26	24
279	Danger: Home Visit Ahead! (US) / Fatal Home Visit! (J)	27	25
280	Target: Soun! (US) / I've Got a Yen for Soun (J)	27	25
281	Danger: Flight Path of Love! (US) / Deadly Lover's Escape (J)	27	25
282	The Unbeatable Lens (US) / Invincible Glasses (J)	27	25
283	Tearful Apology! (US) / A Tearful Apology (J)	27	25
284	The Lowliest Jerk (US) / The Unmanliest (J)	27	25
285	Demon Dog of the Sea (US) / Killer Swimwear (J)	27	25
286	Compliment Me! (US) / Flatter Me! (J)	27	25
287	Curséd Cave of Broken Loves (US) / The Cursed Tunnel of Lost Love (J)	27	25
288	Exit of Misery (US) / The Break-up Exit (J)	27	25
289	Give Back the Tests! (US) / Give My Test Back! (J)	27	25
290	Mother, I am Ranma	28	26
291	Thousand-Mountain vs. Thousand-Sea (US) / Umisen-ken and Yamasen-ken (J)	28	26
292	Ranma vs. Ranma!	28	26
293	Intensive Training! (US) / Special Study!! Umisen-ken (J)	28	26
294	A Letter From Mother (US) / A Letter from Mother (J)	28	26
295	Quick as Lighting―The Thousand Seas! (US) / Lightning Fast Umisen-ken (J)	28	26
296	House of the Sea, House of the Mountain (US) / House of Ocean, House of Mountain (J)	28	26
297	Thousand-Mountain Tragedy (US) / The Tragedy of Yamasen-ken (J)	28	26
298	The Invisible Strike (US) / Invisible Secret Fist!! (J)	28	26
299	The Truth of the Secret Scrolls (US) / The Truth of the Secret Message (J)	28	26
300	Ranma's Tears	28	26
301	The Terror of the Phoenix Sword! (US) / The Phoenix Sword (J)	29	27
302	The Immortal Phoenix Sword (US) / Attack of the Phoenix (J)	29	27
303	The Seeds of Tragedy (US) / The Seeds of Doom (J)	29	27
304	Motherhood Flower, Please (US) / Two Peas in a Pod (J)	29	27
305	Shampoo―Captive! (US) / Flower Power! (J)	29	27
306	The Forest of Poisonous Plants (US) / The Garden of Poisonous Beauty (J)	29	27
307	The Ultimate Medicine (US) / Attack of the Killer Secret Herb (J)	29	27
308	Evil and the Bean (US) / I Oni Have Eyes for You (J)	29	27
309	The King of Poverty's Challenge (US) / The Clash of the Kings of Cash (J)	29	27
310	The King of Debt vs. the Queen of Debt	29	27
311	For the Love of Ten Yen (US) / The 10-Yen Battle from Hell! (J)	29	27
312	Spring Comes to Ryoga (US) / Ryoga's Spring (J)	30	28
313	LOVE the Pig! (US) / I Love Pigs! (J)	30	28
314	The Perfect Couple (US) / The Ideal Couple (J)	30	28
315	Experimental Herb • Towering Hair (US) / Angry Hair Heaven (J)	30	28
316	Infinate Battle "Ki" (US) / The Endless Fighting Spirit (J)	30	28
317	Let's Study!	30	28
318	The Tragic Legend of the Black Cherry Tree (US) / The Curse of the Man-Cherry Tree (J)	30	28
319	Ranma Catches a Cold (US) / Ranma and His Hot Cold (J)	30	28
320	A Hot Reunion?! (US) / Hot Reunion?! (J)	30	28
321	Ranma Till Morning (US) / All Through the Night (J)	30	28
322	The Cursed Spatula	30	28
323	Happosai's New Disciple (US) / Happosai's New Pupil (J)	31	29
324	Secret Treasure • Brocade Butterfly (US) / Butterfly Brocade (J)	31	29
325	Special Move • Wild Butterfly Dance! (US) / Dance of the Butterflies (J)	31	29
326	Lucky Day…My Family's Away! (US) / What a Lucky Day! My Family is Away! (J)	31	29
327	Alone With Them Both (US) / Both Akane and Akari (J)	31	29
328	The Umbrella of Love (US) / It's Raining Love (J)	31	29
329	Get Ready for Swim Class! (US) / Clash in the Swimming Class (J)	31	29
330	Cold Summer Noodles (US) / It's Summer! Jumbo Order of Chilled Ramen Anyone? (J)	31	29
331	The Doll of Vengeance (US) / The Vengeful Spirit Doll (J)	31	29
332	The Doll's Trap (US) / The Doll's Trap (J)	31	29
333	Aloha School (US) / Ranma Goes Hawaiian! (J)	31	29
334	The Glowing Girl	32	30
335	The Other Rogue! (US) / Rounge Shape-Changes! (J)	32	30
336	Source of Power: Owner's Manual (US) / How to Use the "Source of Power" (J)	32	30
337	A Beautiful Friendship (US) / Two Platonic Flames (J)	32	30
338	Beware! The Blows of Strength (US) / Secret Fist! Empty-Handed Filial Piety Random Strike! (J)	32	30
339	The White Lily (US) / Asuka of the White Lily (J)	32	30
340	Battle of the Boyfriends! (US) / Black vs. White! A Boyfriend Duel?! (J)	32	30
341	The Chosen One	32	30
342	Ranma's Plot (US) / Ranma's Master Plan (J)	32	30
343	The First Time Said What I Felt (US) / My Feelings for Akane (J)	32	30
344	The Great Divide (US) / The Distance Between the Two (J)	32	30
345	Love Medicine (US) / The Healing Power of Lust (J)	33	31
346	Kasumi Gets Mad (US) / Kasumi is Angry (J)	33	31
347	The Mushroom of Time (US) / The Mushroom of Ages (J)	33	31
348	To the Mushroom Forest! (US) / Return to the Mushroom Forest (J)	33	31
349	16cm Short (US) / Quest for 16 Cm (J)	33	31
350	The Two Shampoos (US) / Two Shampoos (J)	33	31
351	Payback's a Saint (US) / I'll Repay You Back Tonight (J)	33	31
352	Drawn and Quartered Horse (US) / Trouble with "Ema's" (J)	33	31
353	Saotome Family (Onsen) Vacation (US) / The Saotome Family Hot Springs Trip (J)	33	31
354	Stop that Octopus! (US) / An Octopus is Following Me (J)	33	31
355	Masked Death Match! (US) / Fierce Battle! Mask Death March (J)	33	31
356	Shotgun Beans!! (US) / Bean Throwing Night (J)	34	32
357	The Little Heart (US) / Little Heart (J)	34	32
358	Whack the Principal (US) / The Delinquent Teacher (J)	34	32
359	Bow Down! (US) / Ranma, Take a Bow! (J)	34	32
360	Busted! (US) / Bust Battle (J)	34	32
361	The Punishment of Perv-Boy! (US) / Punishment! The Perverted Juvenile (J)	34	32
362	Mama, Papa and Tata (US) / Father and Mother (J)	34	32
363	Looking His Best (US) / First Clear Meeting (J)	34	32
364	See Me for What I Am (US) / Please See the Real Me (J)	34	32
365	Incense of Spring Sleep (US) / The Smell of Nightmares (J)	34	32
366	The Three-Year Smile of Death (US) / The Smiling Three Year Death (J)	34	32
367	The Two Ranmas	35	33
368	An Isosceles Love Triangle (US) / Triangle Relationship (J)	35	33
369	Get That Compact! (US) / Get Rid of that Mirror! (J)	35	33
370	The Ultimate Couple (US) / The Final Goodbye (J)	35	33
371	Playing House (US) / Nabiki's Revenge (J)	35	33
372	The Sisters of Terror! (US) / Oh no! Sexy Kunoichi Sisters (J)	35	33
373	The Saddest Kunoichi (US) / The Wrath of Kunoichi (J)	35	33
374	Runaway Ninja! (US) / Konatsu, the Runaway (J)	35	33
375	Ranma vs. Konatsu	35	33
376	Konatsu's Happiness	35	33
377	Bamboo Leaves of Love (US) / The Leaves that Bind (J)	35	33
378	The Conspiracy of Jellyfish Beach	36	34
379	Coming Soon (US) / Ryoga and Akari's Date (J)	36	34
380	A Visit to the Family Grave (US) / Saotome's Visit the Grave (J)	36	34
381	The Saotome Family Reunion (US) / Mr. and Mrs. Saotome Reunite (J)	36	34
382	A Mother's Doubts (US) / A Mother's Suspicion (J)	36	34
383	Ranma's Seppuku (US) / Ranma and Seppuku (J)	36	34
384	Reunion and Farewell (US) / Meeting and Parting (J)	36	34
385	Goodbye Ranma?! (US) / Ranma Leaves the Tendo Home (J)	36	34
386	A Package from Mother (US) / A Gift from Mom (J)	36	34
387	Bet on the Ring!! (US) / Wear the Ring!! (J)	36	34
388	The Sales Force (US) / Trying to Prosper (Forcefully) (J)	36	34
389	The Messenger from Jusenkyo (US) / A Messenger from Jusenkyo (J)	37	35
390	Battle for the Map! (US) / Battle for the Map of Jusenkyo (J)	37	35
391	Egg Shampoo (US) / The Hatchling (J)	37	35
392	China Bound!! (US) / Ranma Returns to China (J)	37	35
393	The Prince of Ho'o Peak (US) / The Prince of Mount Phoenix (J)	37	35
394	The Labyrinth Beneath (US) / Journey into the Center of Mount Phoenix (J)	37	35
395	Dogfight above the Peak (US) / Aerial Battle at Mount Phoenix (J)	37	35
396	Akane in the Spring (US) / Akane... in Jusenkyo? (J)	37	35
397	Bad News at Jusenkyo (US) / Jusenkyo's Disaster (J)	37	35
398	Akane Breaks Out! (US) / Akane Escapes! (J)	37	35
399	The Phoenix and the Dragon (US) / Phoenix and Dragon (J)	38	36
400	The Saffron Egg (US) / Saffron Transforms! (J)	38	36
401	The Spout of the Dragon (US) / The Dragon Tap (J)	38	36
402	A Last, Sweet Memory (US) / The Final Memory (J)	38	36
403	Saffron Reborn (US) / Saffron is Reborn (J)	38	36
404	Ranma Battles Saffron!! (US) / Fight! Ranma vs. Saffron (J)	38	36
405	The Power of the Gekkaja (US) / The Gekkaja's Power (J)	38	36
406	Akane's Smile	38	36
407	The Final Chapter (US) / Finale: Ranma and Akane (J)	38	36

Best Street Performer

2009-10-15T00:14:00.001-07:00

This was taken in Victoria, BC. He was actually pretty good too.

Mt Rainier Pic

2009-10-05T09:31:00.000-07:00

Taken last August on our trek to Mt. Rainier.

Bug-eyed Butterfly

2009-10-03T15:17:00.000-07:00

Here's a butterfly from the Butterfly House at the Pacific Science Center.

Week in Review

2009-10-02T15:29:00.000-07:00

Wow, the week is over. Once again, it went by too fast. What have I done in the last 7 days? Lets see…

I saw Glenn Beck with Bonnie, Tasha, and Brenda last Saturday. It was fun seeing all of the people there, and slightly disappointing that there weren’t more protesters outside. We almost didn’t get in since they ran out of tickets before we got to the window to buy them. After waiting around, and after many people had left, someone came out and told them to take our money and let us in. So we did get in after all. I also bought a Gadsden flag while standing in line for tickets. Thanks Bonnie for taking us.

Sunday was Amy and Shaun’s wedding. That was fun. The band really could have used more practice and the reception was really long. The food was good, the speeches were entertaining, and the slideshow was fun to watch as well.

Didn’t do much during the rest of the week except look for a real job, earn a few bucks, and run errands for grandparents. I really should have spent more time watching TV, reading, and relaxing but there isn’t enough time in the week for that.

Space Needle

2009-09-29T23:42:00.001-07:00

Taken this summer when we all went down to the Science Center.

McDonald's Sandwiches

2009-09-26T00:54:00.000-07:00

McDonald’s, my favorite source of fast-food based breakfasts, currently has their Sausage McMuffin on sale for $1. This would be very good for me, except for one problem, I really enjoy the Sausage McMuffin with Egg sandwich much more than its eggless cousin. The Sausage McMuffin with Egg sandwich is still priced at $2.49 (or $2.59 at some locations around here), that’s $1.49 simply for an egg fried into the shape of a patty. That’s roughly half the price of a dozen free-range, organic, large, AA grade eggs from Amazon Fresh.

Being my usual, frugal self I asked how much it cost for the egg patty by itself. Those are 65¢. So I ordered a few of the $1 Sausage McMuffins and an equal number of egg patties. I saved 84¢, plus tax, per sandwich just by adding the egg myself.

McDonald’s would be making 84¢ additional profit by paying an employee to put that egg on my sandwich. Assuming a very slow employee takes 15 seconds to get an egg from the warming box and place it on a sandwich, and that employee has no other job requirements during the breakfast rush, that egg placer would be generating $201.60 in value per hour, minus the cost of the eggs and the local minimum wage as their pay.

Me, with experience working in very high-volume, fast-food production could probably do that egg placement in 3-4 seconds, generating 4-5x the value per hour. If they were to offer me $100 per hour I could probably bring myself to inserting myself in the machine known as the McDonald’s kitchen. Sadly, I do not believe there are any fast-food restaurants in this area that receive the volume of business required to keep me completely busy during the breakfast hours.

This is not an endorsement of McDonald’s as either a healthy meal option, nor as a good value for your money. Their breakfast food merely tastes good to me, and therefore I am writing about my experience.

What does this country need?

2009-09-25T00:03:00.003-07:00

If you said LESS agents patrolling the US/Mexican border, you are an idiot. You'd also be in agreement with the Obama administration, which has decided to cut almost 400 agents from patrols next year. Most of these agents are being redeployed to the US/Canadian border. Although I do live within 100 miles of the US/Canadian border I haven't seen a huge problem in this area with illegal Canadians swarming into this area and sapping all of our public services. Read the whole article here.

The Fair

2009-09-23T21:24:00.002-07:00

Yesterday was time for the annual trek to the Puyallup Fair. We got in using our free student tickets, as usual; despite the fact that these tickets are for ages 6-18. As soon as we were inside the fair we were approached by someone offering a free vacation plus giftcards to places I like to go, for simply sitting through a 90 minute time-share presentation. So a few minutes ago we were thought to be under 18, and now we're assumed to be over 21? Good times. Anyway, I don't make enough money to qualify for the presentation, since they only want to make the offer to someone who can potentially afford a timeshare. Oh well, it was still an interesting experience. Time to go do something productive.

Classic Train

2009-09-23T11:29:00.000-07:00

Taken last summer on our trek around Mt Rainier.

Eagle

2009-09-21T11:26:00.001-07:00

Eagle at Point Defiance Zoo.

Hot Air Balloon

2009-09-19T15:58:00.001-07:00

I'm going to post something at least once every other day, it may only be a random picture I've taken, but it will be something. Stay tuned.

Who Profits When You Buy Gas?

2009-09-13T07:56:00.001-07:00

How much money does the oil company make per gallon of gas sold? Let’s find out.

For this calculation I am using ExxonMobil, since I have their 2008 annual report sitting on my desktop at the moment. In 2008, ExxonMobil had total revenues of $477.36 billion. Of that, they paid $36.53 billion in taxes (≈7.65%) and had net profits of $45.22 billion (≈9.47% margin). Using these figures, we’ll calculate the profit on the average gallon of gas sold in Washington State assuming the sale cost is $2.999 per gallon.

Assuming we buy one gallon of gas for $2.999 at an ExxonMobil gas station:

18.4¢ is paid to the Federal government in fuel taxes
37.5¢ is paid to the State of Washington in fuel taxes
I do not believe we pay sales tax on top of the fuel tax (I could be wrong), and I am assuming no additional, local taxes are added to the bill.

After these taxes are subtracted from the original $2.999 sale, ExxonMobil keeps $2.44 per gallon. They then pay an average of $0.187 in state and federal taxes on that revenue, the 7.65% calculated above. ExxonMobil will spend $2.253 per gallon in operating expenses; drilling or buying crude oil, refining the oil into gasoline, transporting to the gas station, operating the gas station, etc. That leaves the 9.47% margin calculated above, or $0.231 per gallon.

When the governments make more than three times as much per gallon of gas as the oil company does, I think we have a problem. The government isn’t doing the work, yet they are receiving the most financial benefit. I see a problem that must be corrected. And the inmates that are currently running the asylum think the "evil" oil companies aren't paying their fair share? What is "their fair share"?

9-9-9

2009-09-09T11:13:00.002-07:00

Today is 09-09-09. If you would have seen the clock this morning at 09:09:09, there would have been a lot of 9's. Carry on.

Dear Congress: Not Yours to Give!

2009-08-22T09:35:00.001-07:00

I recalled a biography I read in 5th or 6th grade about Davy Crockett. Here's a chunk of it. The full book is entitled The Life of Colonel David Crockett published in 1884 by Edward Sylvester Ellis. Every member of our Congress should read this passage and follow Crockett's lead. Our country would be much better off if such a thing were to happen.

One day in the House of Representatives a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support. The Speaker was just about to put the question when Crockett arose:

"Mr. Speaker--I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has not the power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him.

"Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks."

He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt, it would, but for that speech, it received but few votes, and, of course, was lost.

Later, when asked by a friend why he had opposed the appropriation, Crockett gave this explanation:

"Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast as we could. In spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made houseless, and, besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them. The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business and rushed it through as soon as it could be done.

"The next summer, when it began to be time to think about election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there, but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up. When riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came to the fence. As he came up, I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but, as I thought, rather coldly.

"I began: 'Well, friend, I am one of those unfortunate beings called
candidates, and---‘

"Yes I know you; you are Colonel Crockett. I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine, I shall not vote for you again."

"This was a sockdolager...I begged him to tell me what was the matter.

" ’Well, Colonel, it is hardly worth-while to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me. But I beg your pardon for expressing it in that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the constituent to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting or wounding you. I intend by it only to say that your understanding of the Constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what, but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest.
…But an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the more honest he is.'

" 'I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake about it, for I do not remember that I gave any vote last winter upon any constitutional question.’

“ ‘No, Colonel, there’s no mistake. Though I live in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings of Congress. My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers by a fire in Georgetown. Is that true?’

" ‘Well, my friend; I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did.'

" ‘It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. 'No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this county as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week's pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men in and around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life.' "The congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution.'

" 'So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you.'

"I tell you I felt streaked. I saw if I should have opposition, and this man should go to talking, he would set others to talking, and in that district I was a gone fawn-skin. I could not answer him, and the fact is, I was so fully convinced that he was right, I did not want to. But I must satisfy him, and I said to him:

" ‘Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. I intended to be guided by it, and thought I had studied it fully. I have heard many speeches in Congress about the powers of Congress, but what you have said here at your plow has got more hard, sound sense in it than all the fine speeches I ever heard. If I had ever taken the view of it that you have, I would have put my head into the fire before I would have given that vote; and if you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law I wish I may be shot.'

"He laughingly replied; 'Yes, Colonel, you have sworn to that once before, but I will trust you again upon one condition. You say that you are convinced that your vote was wrong. Your acknowledgment of it will do more good than beating you for it. If, as you go around the district, you will tell people about this vote, and that you are satisfied it was wrong, I will not only vote for you, but will do what I can to keep down opposition, and, perhaps, I may exert some little influence in that way.'

" ‘If I don't’, said I, 'I wish I may be shot; and to convince you that I am in earnest in what I say I will come back this way in a week or ten days, and if you will get up a gathering of the people, I will make a speech to them. Get up a barbecue, and I will pay for it.'

" ‘No, Colonel, we are not rich people in this section, but we have plenty of provisions to contribute for a barbecue, and some to spare for those who have none. The push of crops will be over in a few days, and we can then afford a day for a barbecue. This is Thursday; I will see to getting it up on Saturday week. Come to my house on Friday, and we will go together, and I promise you a very respectable crowd to see and hear you.’

" 'Well, I will be here. But one thing more before I say good-bye. I must know your name.’

" 'My name is Bunce.'

" 'Not Horatio Bunce?'

" 'Yes.’

" 'Well, Mr. Bunce, I never saw you before, though you say you have seen me, but I know you very well. I am glad I have met you, and very proud that I may hope to have you for my friend.'

"It was one of the luckiest hits of my life that I met him. He mingled but little with the public, but was widely known for his remarkable intelligence and incorruptible integrity, and for a heart brimful and running over with kindness and benevolence, which showed themselves not only in words but in acts. He was the oracle of the whole country around him, and his fame had extended far beyond the circle of his immediate acquaintance. Though I had never met him, before, I had heard much of him, and but for this meeting it is very likely I should have had opposition, and had been beaten. One thing is very certain, no man could now stand up in that district under such a vote.

"At the appointed time I was at his house, having told our conversation to every crowd I had met, and to every man I stayed all night with, and I found that it gave the people an interest and a confidence in me stronger than I had ever seen manifested before.

"Though I was considerably fatigued when I reached his house, and, under ordinary circumstances, should have gone early to bed, I kept him up until midnight, talking about the principles and affairs of government, and got more real, true knowledge of them than I had got all my life before.

"I have known and seen much of him since, for I respect him - no, that is not the word - I reverence and love him more than any living man, and I go to see him two or three times every year; and I will tell you, sir, if every one who professes to be a Christian lived and acted and enjoyed it as he does, the religion of Christ would take the world by storm.

"But to return to my story. The next morning we went to the barbecue, and, to my surprise, found about a thousand men there. I met a good many whom I had not known before, and they and my friend introduced me around until I had got pretty well acquainted - at least, they all knew me.

"In due time notice was given that I would speak to them. They gathered up around a stand that had been erected. I opened my speech by saying:

" ‘Fellow-citizens - I present myself before you today feeling like a new man. My eyes have lately been opened to truths which ignorance or prejudice, or both, had heretofore hidden from my view. I feel that I can today offer you the ability to render you more valuable service than I have ever been able to render before. I am here today more for the purpose of acknowledging my error than to seek your votes. That I should make this acknowledgment is due to myself as well as to you. Whether you will vote for me is a matter for your consideration only.’"

"I went on to tell them about the fire and my vote for the appropriation and then told them why I was satisfied it was wrong. I closed by saying:

" ‘And now, fellow-citizens, it remains only for me to tell you that the most of the speech you have listened to with so much interest was simply a repetition of the arguments by which your neighbor, Mr. Bunce, convinced me of my error.

" ‘It is the best speech I ever made in my life, but he is entitled to the
credit for it. And now I hope he is satisfied with his convert and that he will get up here and tell you so.'

"He came upon the stand and said:

" ‘Fellow-citizens - It affords me great pleasure to comply with the request of Colonel Crockett. I have always considered him a thoroughly honest man, and I am satisfied that he will faithfully perform all that he has promised you today.'

"He went down, and there went up from that crowd such a shout for Davy Crockett as his name never called forth before.'

"I am not much given to tears, but I was taken with a choking then and felt some big drops rolling down my cheeks. And I tell you now that the remembrance of those few words spoken by such a man, and the honest, hearty shout they produced, is worth more to me than all the honors I have received and all the reputation I have ever made, or ever shall make, as a member of Congress.'

"Now, sir," concluded Crockett, "you know why I made that speech yesterday.

"There is one thing now to which I will call your attention. You remember that I proposed to give a week's pay. There are in that House many very wealthy men - men who think nothing of spending a week's pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the great debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased--a debt which could not be paid by money--and the insignificance and worthlessness of money, particularly so insignificant a sum as $10,000, when weighed against the honor of the nation. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it."

Happy Countdown Day!

2009-08-07T06:05:00.003-07:00

Today is countdown day in most of the world (except the US). This is because the date is 09/08/07. If the time on the blogspot server is correct, this is being posted at 09/08/07 06:05 04.321s AM
09 - Year
08 - Month
07 - Day
06 - Hour
05 - Minute
04.321 - Second

Hooray for Dumb Surveys!

2009-08-03T12:40:00.000-07:00

Doing one of the countless surveys I regularly receive I noticed that the survey program was much more dumb than usual. The first set of questions asked me which fast food restaurants I had visited in the last 4 weeks and how many times I frequented said restaurants. I filled in that I had gone to both Taco Bell and Arby’s once in the past month. Then the survey goes on to ask which of the McDonald’s coffees I had ordered in the last month. There wasn’t an option to say that since I don’t drink coffee I probably wasn’t going to be ordering coffee.

Since I had just told the program that McDonald’s wasn’t one of the two fast food places I’d visited in the previous 4 week, the program should realize that I’m probably not going to be ordering something from a place I haven’t been. Some better programming on their part will allow them to save substantial time in collecting and processing survey data, and save the time of those taking these surveys.

Random Quote

2009-07-10T15:45:00.002-07:00

Engineering 101: If it shouldn't move, you need duct tape. If it should move, you need WD-40

Don't remember where I heard that.

It Is Finished

2009-06-15T01:58:00.003-07:00

After 20 quarters of school, 7 years, and roughly $23,000 paid out of pocket after scholarships and grants, I am now the owner of a BA degree in Business Administration for the University of Washington.

This is now the first June since I was three that I have no idea what I'm going to be doing in the fall.

Government Motors

2009-06-04T01:24:00.002-07:00

I sold all of my stock in Government Motors today. I had bought a few hundred shares very cheaply a few weeks ago on the gamble that somehow the government wouldn’t %@#* things up. I obviously had too much faith in those people. On a bright note, TiVo stock did well today on news that they won their lawsuit against EchoStar. So it was not a completely dark day where my portfolio is concerned. Tomorrow may be darker as we learn more about Obama's outright theft of a multi-billion dollar, once great company. Now we get to watch Ford and Toyota fight it out to become that largest car manufacturer in the US.

Expensive is the New Cheap!

2009-04-28T22:02:00.001-07:00

Al Gore claims that increasing the cost of energy will reduce the costs to American citizens. How does this work out. It’s very simple by his “logic”, if that’s what you call it.

Gore defended the science that warns of a potential climate crisis later this century and insisted the blueprint outlined by House Democrats would address the problem without soaring prices for Americans.
"I think the cost of energy will come down when we make this transition to renewable energy," said Gore, who predicted economic costs would be much greater if global warming is not reined in by a shift from the use of fossil fuels. Democrats argued that the development of renewable and energy efficient technologies will produce jobs and mitigate cost increases.

Basically Gore believes that if they make it too expensive for the average person to live at their current standard of living because of increased energy prices, we can then save money by switching to cheaper, alternative energy sources. Why don’t we just switch to those cheaper, alternative sources of energy today? Because they’re too expensive and unreliable today. So his goal is to get Congress to implement restrictions that will increase the costs of most forms of energy generation so high that we will clamor for the ones that are too expensive today.

What will this mean for most Americans if implemented? We’d likely see gas prices so expensive that some people may quit their jobs in order to find a slightly lower paying job closer to home in order to save money on transportation. Others might decide that it would be more effective to try to move closer to their current job location and hope they still have a job to justify the move. Some might have to make the choice between heating their homes or cooking a meal. Those of us who aren’t paid tens of millions of dollars to fly around the world and preach about how evil it is to consume more than the bare minimum of energy will be priced right out of our current standard of living.

Electricity costs would skyrocket in most of the country. If we are forced to get most of our electricity from sources such as wind and solar, we’re going to be screwed on a calm, cloudy day, and pretty much every night. If we are forced to use subsidized corn to make ethanol, food prices will increase, fuel prices will increase, fuel economy will decrease, and our cars will wear out faster.

Here's the article I found.

Foxtrot Comic

2009-04-26T00:27:00.005-07:00

I saw this and laughed. Click for larger image.

I Hate HP & Best Buy

2009-04-14T23:16:00.002-07:00

I had to send my laptop into Best Buy to get fixed, since it has issues. I sent it in on the 19th of March, and picked it up today. I had issues with the screen resizing itself, the keyboard occasionally not registering the keys I typed, and the whole computer just crashing randomly. I know that an entire generation of HP laptops contains bad chips made by nVidia. HP has acknowledged that some of its laptops are severely messed up and has extended the warranties on a few dozen models because of those issues.

My machine counts as one of the ones that are messed up, but not enough of them are messed enough for HP to extend the warranty on them. I contacted HP and they told me to take it to Best Buy, since they do warranty repairs for HP. Three weeks later (the day after I was supposed to get my laptop back) I get a call from the HP service center in California saying that they need my authorization to do a hard drive replacement. They said that they didn’t find any of the problems that I have been experiencing for the last few months, but they said that my hard drive failed and that they needed my authorization to replace it at a cost of $236 for parts and labor. I asked them why it wouldn’t be covered under the warranty, so the guy asked the HP representative there about it. The HP guy said that since I bought the laptop on eBay, they wouldn’t honor the 12 month warranty and thus I would have to pay for any and all repairs. (I’ve dealt with HP before about a hard drive issue, and they replaced it for me for free a few months ago, because that was under warranty, they didn’t care that I bought it from eBay, all they cared was that it was less than a year old, and was therefore covered under warranty.) I said I was not willing to pay that much for a hard drive replacement, so they shipped it back to me without actually doing anything to it, other than it coming back to me with dirt and dust in it that wasn’t there when I gave it to them.

The hard drive I have in my laptop sells for $50 and you need to remove a single screw to take it out of the computer. I really need to find a job where I can get paid $186 to remove a screw and put it back a minute later. If anyone can find me such a job, I would really appreciate it. I ran my own detailed diagnostic on the drive when I got it back and found nothing wrong with it.

HP sent me a survey about my recent experience with them, and I said I was very dissatisfied and explained why. They said they may contact me for follow-up information, and I hope they do.

The people at HP and Best Buy need to actually communicate with each other. Everyone I talked to said they’d make sure the problem was taken care of, except for the guy at the service center. Everyone I talked to at HP and Best Buy said my machine was under warranty, except the guy actually in charge of doing the work. If the HP people, and the Best Buy people I interacted with a month ago had told me that my machine would not be fixed for free, I wouldn’t have been parted from my laptop for almost a month with the hopes of getting it back in full working order. The lady at Best Buy was going to charge me $34 for the labor of looking at my computer, but since I pointed out that her sheet says my computer is still under parts and labor warranty, she didn’t charge me.

I now have no idea if my computer is under warranty or not. One guy at Best Buy said that an HP person told him it wasn’t under warranty, yet everyone else I’ve dealt with at both HP ad Best Buy believed it was under warranty. Everyone needs to be on the same page. Either my machine is under warranty and I want it fixed, or it’s not under warranty and I’ll open it up and try to work something out myself, without the fear of voiding the warranty. And yes,

I wish my experience with Best Buy and HP was more like my experience with Logitech. My wireless headphones broke, and there was a known defect in the plastic used that caused them to break. Not only did Logitech let me know that there was defective plastic used in my headphones, they sent me a pair of the newer, better headphones as a replacement because they would not replace a defective part with a part that would probably fail in the same way. Although I wish that I didn't have to deal with broken headphones, I appreciate that they took the time to ensure that I was satisfied with their product. Here's my post about that situation. And yes, after 15 months, I am very happy with my replacement headphones and they still work great!

Wise Politician?

2009-03-28T21:35:00.005-07:00

I'd vote probably vote for anyone in the US that talked like this guy (and I'm not talking about his accent). His name is Daniel Hannan and he's a British MEP.

Earth Hour?

2009-03-28T20:44:00.000-07:00

Some hippy Australian thing has spread like the Plague across much of the guilt, ridden Western World. Many people feel guilty for living in the modern world, with modern conveniences such as electric lights. So to celebrate their moral superiority millions of idiots are taking a stand against modern technology in support of global warming, or something like that. They are turning off all the lights and living by candles and lanterns for an hour. These idiots don't realize that more pollution is generated by burning candles than is produced by generating the electricity used to power a 100 watt bulb (which also puts out more light).

To show my support for human progress over the last century I am observing Human Achievement Hour. Instead of turning everything off, I'm putting the halogen shop lights in the front windows for the world to see. I got out some Christmas lights too. And I'm spending the hour in front of the computer.

Free: 50+ Blue and Orange Popsicles

2009-03-23T20:33:00.002-07:00

Best Craigslist post ever!:

My kids only eat red popsicles, so here I am again, with a freezer full of blue and orange popsicles . . . . Free to anyone who can pick them up today. Tell me what time you can be hear (I'm near Steilacoom and Bridgeport) and I'll send the address to whoever can be hear first.

Blue is usually my favorite color popsicle since that's usually blue raspberry, which is my favorite flavor.

Another Month Gone...

2009-03-04T01:14:00.003-08:00

I really want to know where all the time went. It seems like it was just Christmas, and now the winter quarter is almost over with finals approaching. We had snow for a couple days last week, of the consistency that makes perfect snowballs. Sakura-Con is only five weeks away, and I'm looking forward to almost every minute of it.

The country is still going down the tubes and probably will for the next five years, longer if Obama stays in office past 2012; slightly shorter if conservatives can get themselves elected to Congress next year.

I thought I has something else worth saying but I can't remember what it was, so it obviously wasn't that important.

Random thought of the day:
How is it that God, the creator and master of the universe expects us to give Him 10%, while the guy at the restaurant that brings me the food I ordered thinks he deserves 15%?

Get ready…to wait…again….

2009-02-03T01:32:00.001-08:00

Two weeks from today is supposed to be (as of this writing) the cutoff date for all analog TV broadcasts in the US. The switch was mandated by Contress in 1996 and was originally scheduled to happen in 2006. They delayed it a few years to ensure that everyone would be ready for the transition. They did require that all new TVs sold, would have digital tuners in them so that they would be ready for the switch from analog. So any TV made in the last 3 years will be unaffected. Any TV currently hooked up to cable or satellite signals will be unaffect until the mandated switch on their end in 2012. Any TV that isn’t being used to actually watch TV programming is also going to be just fine.

People are now screaming that the transition date needs to be pushed back four more months because people aren’t ready. Millions didn’t get their free coupons from the government to buy converter boxes for their older TVs. They’re demanding free converter boxes so that they can continue to watch TV all day since requiring people to purchase an adaptor for their TV is obviously racist and a discrimination against poor people.

If a $40 converer box is a financial hardship to someone who only gets TV over the air, then they really shouldn’t be watching TV in the first place, especially since there really isn’t much worth watching on network TV most of the time. These people should go out and get a job or do something more productive with their lives. We’re probably the only country in the world where the poorest are complaining about something that could adversely impact their TV viewing habits. Ironically we’re also the only country in the world where the poorer you are the more likely you are to be morbidly obese; in much of the world the poorest citizens are emaciated and on the brink of starvation. People really need something better to do than complain about TV.

Epic Freeze

2009-01-16T21:34:00.001-08:00

The evening of Friday, December 12, 2008 was the beginning of the coldest period of time I remember here in Seattle. While attending a performance at Kent Meridian High School the temperatures dropped and it snowed a couple of inches in an hour’s time. In most of the country, people wouldn’t think much of seeing snow in December, but this is Seattle. We don’t get much snow around here and usually not while it’s still technically Fall.

What made this weather even more unusual was that it was cold, really cold. For us to get snow we need moisture in the air, which usually comes to the region via southern air currents. Cold weather comes from the arctic, but that air is almost always very dry. This particular weather front had both, with enough cold air to cool off the warm southern air, and enough moisture in the air to blanket the region in snow. Both the huge quantities of snow that fell, and the cold temperatures lingered for several weeks. Snow was on the ground at my house for almost 3 weeks, other places had it longer. I noticed last night that there are still patches of snow at church that have not melted yet, 5 weeks later.

So far this has been a rather typical January. It’s a few degrees cooler than usual, but still above freezing most of the time. January and November usually fight it out for the title of “Wettest Month of the Year” and this January is getting a strong head start. Combine that with the tons of melting snow and many parts of the region are seeing dangerous flooding. But if we didn’t have Al Gore’s global warming invention to protect us from the extreme cold, we would probably be frozen solid right now.

Rip-off!

2009-01-15T23:19:00.002-08:00

I received my final textbook for this quarter a few days ago and realized that this book was a total rip-off, much more so than normal college textbooks. This particular textbook is a supplemental course pack put together by our "Business, Government, and Society" professor which has additional readings for us. I’ve had these before and didn’t have too much to say about them one way or the other except that they were grossly overpriced and usually just scans or photocopies of original material. This book, however, was made up almost entirely from magazine articles, newspaper articles, and corporate publications that can be found online for free with a few minutes searching via your favorite search engine. The one piece that was not freely available online was 3 poorly copied pages from a 2003 textbook, which is available at the school library.

I have all of the links saved and will offer to email them out to any classmates who wish to have them so they can avoid wasting their money on a useless booklet. Maybe I should ask for donations? :)

New Year's Eve

2008-12-31T12:05:00.002-08:00

Congratulations!

If you are reading this you have (or nearly have) successfully completed the calendar year 2008. Tonight will be the time-honored tradition of celebrating the new year in hopes of it being better than the previous one, or something like that. Then the traditional fireworks, followed by some more partying and then the drunk dodge home (The night of the 31st/morning of the 1st is considered the most dangerous time to be on the roads as it has the highest number of drunk-driving related accidents, therefore the effort to dodge all these drunks).

I’m off to go pick some stuff from my fireworks stash to blow up tonight. Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T02:16:00.000-08:00

I just got home from dropping Brenda off at her house. It has been snowing most of the evening, so only a freak warm front that brings hot air and lots of rain in the next few hours will prevent me from having a white Christmas this year.

Merry Christmas!

White Christmas Update

2008-12-24T11:29:00.006-08:00

So one party is cancelled today, while the other is on, so that should make my day slightly less hectic. It’s snowing outside and there’s currently 11 inches on the deck. Our igloo is fairing quite nicely with the added snow. Zach hates it but I did manage to get him to stay in the opening long enough to snap a few pics.

Click on either of the images to see the really big versions if you wish.

Seattle has taken it upon themselves once again to be the sole “defenders of the environment.” They are doing this by refusing to use salt on any of the icy roads because of the environmental impact that may pose. Apparently anything that gets spread onto the roads in Seattle eventually gets washed into Puget Sound and they haven’t yet done a multi-year, multi-million dollar study to determine if washing a few extra tons of sea-salt into the ocean will harm marine life or not. As Seattle is one of the hilliest (I didn’t know that was a real word, but spell check and the dictionary tell me it is) large cities in the country, not salting the roads is very dangerous. But then again this is Seattle and they look for any excuse to keep people from driving their cars anywhere, even if that reason is because it’s life-threatening to try to drive some of these roads that are sheets of ice.
Thank you Al Gore once again for giving us your global warming, otherwise we would surely be dead from what’s already likely to be the coldest December of my lifetime so far.

A White Christmas?

2008-12-24T10:15:00.000-08:00

It might actually happen this year! Or at least a Christmas with some traces of snow left on the ground in varying shades of white, gray, and brown. It's been snowing/slushing all week and therefore most of our accumulated snow from the last week and a half hasn't melted yet. It started snowing the evening of the 12th and some of that was still around when it resumed snowing a few days later. From recent memory I recall traces of snow on the ground for 16 days in a row 2 years ago. We might have that beat if there’s still snow on Saturday.

I’m going to be all Christmas partied out by the end of this week. Our party that got snowed out last Saturday due to our nonexistent blizzard is rescheduled for Friday. There are two parties today (overlapping a bit) as well as another one on Saturday. I'm gonna try to make both tonight. I still haven’t decided if I want to go shopping later today before these parties start. I enjoy going out on Christmas Eve so I can make fun of the panicked people who need their last minute gifts for people. Not that I don’t often wait until the last minute, I’m just not panicked about it. And I've had all my shopping done for quite a few hours now anyway.

Border Update

2008-12-22T09:35:00.000-08:00

So the night of November 30 my mom, my sisters, and my girlfriend were coming home from Mt Baker, while Dad and the dog stayed behind at the condo since there wasn’t room in the car for all 7 of us. We decided that since we were only a few miles from the Canadian border that we would swing through Canada for a quick stop, primarily because Brenda had never been there before. We also wanted to stop by a grocery store and buy a bunch of candy that cannot be bought in the US due to pesky FDA regulations (KinderEggs). So we stopped at Zellers, which is just like Target, and bought a bunch of random candy to bring home, then we stopped by Wendy’s for supper. We get back to the border only to wait just under an hour to actually get to the crossing point. After talking with the customs dude for a few minutes he asks to see our passports. None of us actually had a passport with us since we didn’t actually plan on leaving the country that afternoon, nor did we realize that finally needed one to get back into the US.
We were then sent to the holding area where we were supposed to talk to some other customs people to convince them that we are indeed US citizens and have a right to be in the US. Thanks to idiots in the government who think illegals need at least as many rights and privileges in the US as real citizens, a government issued drivers’ license is not proof of citizenship or even legal residency in the US. Also, the entry fee to enter the US legally for someone who cannot prove that they are a US citizen is about $570.
Thankfully my mom was able to talk our way into the country and we made it home in one piece, without having to shell out a quarter’s tuition to get home. The moral of this story, if you’re coming into the US, pretend to speak Spanish and don’t cross on a major road. That will save you from many problems.

Van Update

2008-12-21T15:23:00.000-08:00

So as a follow-up to my post on December 1, a day or two actually means 2-3 weeks on this particular occasion. So our van is basically totaled now. Apparently there was a defect on the frame of the van where the steering box housing (if I remember correctly) which caused it to fail structurally. This is actually supposed to be one of the strongest parts of the vehicle as it basically supports the full weight of the vehicle and the full force of forcing the 4500 pounds of it to turn at whatever speed it happens to be traveling.
It also appears that this is not an isolated case, my mom did some research and found quite a few reports where owners have complained that the exact same thing has happened to them; the biggest difference is that most of these complaints were filed between 1994 and 1997 for the van that was built in 1993. My mom also thinks she can find a bunch of accident reports where the van did a similar thing at freeway speeds, killing everyone involved which would mean that the owner wouldn’t be able to file such a claim if they were in the van at the time.
My grandpa took the van from Mt. Baker to his house to look at it and discovered several large cracks in the frame with rust in them, indicating that the cracks have probably been there since we bought the van (15 years ago next week).
God was definitely watching over us as we have driven that van up and down the West coast several times, and even out east to the other coast. That it died while we were parking on the top of a mountain was a bit inconvenient, but if it had broke a few minutes earlier we probably would have plunged over a cliff, or if it failed after we left that would have been another cliff to plunge over.

Global Warming is Once Again Saving My Life

2008-12-21T08:05:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Al Gore’s more useful invention, global warming, I am not dead right now. We are currently experiencing some of the coldest and nastiest conditions I can recall in my lifetime of living here in Seattle. With highs squeaking into the 20s and lows flirting with single digits (all Fahrenheit) and blizzard conditions over most of the region, I am warmly sitting in front of the raging woodstove with my laptop. We’ve got about 6 inches of snow on the ground at the moment, which is amazing; 6 inches of snow in a year is pretty good here, not to mention all at once.
I was actually stranded at home a good chunk of Friday and Saturday since I happen to be the only one in the house with a vehicle that has 4 wheel drive, therefore both of my parents took it upon themselves to borrow it several times to run errands and stuff like that. The weather people also claim that there will be 90mph gusts of wind from about midnight to early this afternoon, but I’ll believe that when I see it.

Now that I'm up and ready to leave for church, I just got a call from the Don that all services are canceled and that I can sleep in. As this morning is the first time all week that I've been out of bed before 11am (yay Christmas break) I really wish someone would have made that decision and let me know before I went to bed. Oh well I guess I'll read for a bit then nap for a few hours.

Funniest Car Listing

2008-12-02T18:35:00.001-08:00

Here's a car listing for a Nissan Xterra that someone found on Craigslist and posted to Fark:

OK, let me start off by saying this Xterra is only available for purchase by the manliest of men (or women). My friend, if it was possible for a vehicle to sprout chest hair and a five o'clock shadow, this Nissan would look like Tom Selleck. It is just that manly.

It was never intended to drive to the mall so you can pick up that adorable shirt at Abercrombie & Fitch that you had your eye on. It wasn't meant to transport you to yoga class or Linens & Things. No, that's what your Prius is for. If that's the kind of car you're looking for, then just do us all a favor and stop reading right now. I mean it. Just stop.

This car was engineered by 3rd degree ninja super-warriors in the highest mountains of Japan to serve the needs of the man that cheats death on a daily basis. They didn't even consider superfluous nancy boy amenities like navigation systems (real men don't get lost), heated leather seats (a real man doesn't let anything warm his butt), or On Star (real men don't even know what the hell On Star is).

No, this brute comes with the things us testosterone-fueled super action junkies need. It has a 265 HP engine to outrun the cops. It's got special blood/gore resistant upholstery. It even has a first-aid kit in the back. You know what the first aid kit has in it? A pint of whiskey, a stitch-your-own-wound kit and a hunk of leather to bite down on when you're operating on yourself. The Xterra also has an automatic transmission so if you're being chased by Libyan terrorists, you'll still be able to shoot your machine gun out the window and drive at the same time. It's saved my bacon more than once.

It has room for you and the four hotties you picked up on the way to the gym to blast your pecs and hammer your glutes. There's a tow hitch to pull your 50 caliber anti-Taliban, self cooling machine gun. I also just put in a new windshield to replace the one that got shot out by The Man.

My price on this bad boy is an incredibly low $12,900, but I'll entertain reasonable offers. And by reasonable, I mean don't walk up and tell me you'll give me $5,000 for it. That's liable to earn you a Burmese-roundhouse-sphincter-kick with a follow up three fingered eye-jab. Would it hurt? Hell yeah. Let's just say you won't be the prettiest guy at the Coldplay concert anymore.

There's only 69,000 miles on this four-wheeled hellcat from Planet Kickass. Trust me, it will outlive you and the offspring that will carry your name. It will live on as a monument to your machismo.

Now, go look in the mirror and tell me what you see. If it's a rugged, no holds barred, super brute he-man macho Chuck Norris stunt double, then contact me. I might be out hang-gliding or BASE jumping or just chilling with my ladies, but I'll get back to you. And when I do, we'll talk about a price over a nice glass of Schmidt while we listen to Johnny Cash.

To sweeten the deal a little, I'm throwing in this pair of MC Hammer pants for the man with rippling quads that can't fit into regular pants. Yeah, you heard me. FREE MC Hammer pants.

Rock on.

Not really sure what to say to that but I was laughing pretty hard when I read it.

And It’s December Already

2008-12-01T15:06:00.002-08:00

Wow, November went by fast. It seems like we just had Halloween and now Thanksgiving is already past us. So what have I done so far this month? I voted against a bunch of politicians and measures that still managed to win. I worked and went to school. I managed to study my Bible Quiz material and work out every single day during the month. I had two Thanksgivings last Thursday, at Brenda’s grandparents’ house and the other at my house. I was also stuck at the top of Mt. Baker Highway thanks to the steering rods sheering off the bolts in our van(thankfully while we were parking in the ski-area parking lot and not when we were driving the icy, winding, cliff-side roads to actually get to that parking lot) which means that our van is only drivable if you’re trying to drive it straight since the front tires won’t turn. And last night I was detained at the US/Canadian border since my ID is apparently no longer considered proof of citizenship. Good times, good times. More to come in the next day or two after I finish my Psych paper and my IT presentation.

Fifth of November

2008-11-05T15:40:00.001-08:00

On this sad day it is time to once again remember the 5th of November. It is once again Guy Fawkes day! It has been 403 years since the attempt by the Catholics to blow up the Parliament building while in session and assassinate King James. In remembrance I might try to watch V for Vendetta sometime today.

Remember, remember, the 5th of November
Gunpowder Treason and plot ;
I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes,
'Twas his intent.
To blow up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below.
Poor old England to overthrow.
By God's providence he was catch'd,
With a dark lantern and burning match

Holloa boys, Holloa boys, let the bells ring
Holloa boys, Holloa boys, God save the King!

Hip hip Hoorah !
Hip hip Hoorah !

A penny loaf to feed ol'Pope,
A farthing cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down,
A faggot of sticks to burn him.
Burn him in a tub of tar,'
Burn him like a blazing star.
Burn his body from his head,
Then we'll say: ol'Pope is dead.

"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." I'm a bit more afraid of my government than I used to be, but I fear people more since they're mostly just the stupid, unwashed masses. Time to arm yourselves a bit more heavily and head for the hills.

Oh $#(^!

2008-11-05T00:36:00.002-08:00

Enough said for now.

Goals

2008-10-21T22:12:00.001-07:00

I set two goals for myself today. The first was to run 5 miles; the second was to finish my Mark book. As of a few minutes ago I finished the first goal by going 5.32 miles in 61 minutes. The second is one I haven’t started working on yet today. I’ll just have to update this again before I go to bed to let the world know that I’ve either completed my set task or gave up in miserable failure. Expect new update within the next four hours…

Update

I have 15 of 42 pages completely done, so I'm much farther behind that I want to be, but I'm tired and am going to bed now.

Sigh

2008-10-14T09:05:00.000-07:00

Here is an article I read last night called "545 People". I pretty much agree with all of it, so I'm pasting it here. If you really want to read it on its original page you can find it here.

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits , WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don't write the tax code. Congress does. You and I don't set fiscal policy. Congress does. You and I don't control monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices - 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country. I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank. I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted - by present facts - of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ, it's because they want them in IRAQ.

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation,” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses, provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees. We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

-Charlie Reese

I have no incumbent representatives or senators worth voting for, and at this point I'll vote for anyone that isn't them. Obama really scares me so I'm also willing to vote for anyone running against him, even if it means sucking it up and voting for someone I've never liked, such as McCain.

Hershey No Longer Makes Chocolate

2008-09-24T22:02:00.002-07:00

For those who haven't heard, the Hershey Company has announced that it will no longer be producing Milk Chocolate. They have made the decision to replace cocoa butter in their products with vegetable oil and chocolate flavorings in order to save money. FDA regulations say that nothing sold as Milk Chocolate can contain vegetable oil, therefore Hershey is removing Milk Chocolate from its labels. I love Milk Chocolate and even eat the Hershey stuff, but I'm not going to be buying it again if they make it gross like those cheapy brands that my grandma likes to buy.

And So It Begins…Again…

2008-09-24T17:26:00.000-07:00

I’m currently sitting in the classroom waiting for my second class to start and am now bored. So in the unlikely event that this post is read, and the unlikelier event that someone is interested, there it is. IT Management should be an interesting class from what I’ve gathered from our only class so far, and I hope my other classes are at least as interesting. That is all for the time being.

Pence Opposes Bush Administration Bailout Plan

2008-09-23T18:15:00.002-07:00

Representative Mike Pence is nearly alone from what I’ve heard in his opposition to the massive giveaway to failing companies. Here’s what he has to say:

“Our financial markets are in turmoil and the Administration was right to call for decisive action to prevent further harm to our economy but nationalizing every bad mortgage in America is not the answer.

“The Administration’s request amounts to the largest corporate bailout in American history. Congress should act, but should act in a way that protects the integrity of our free market and protects the American taxpayer from more debt and higher taxes.
“To have the freedom to succeed, we must preserve the freedom to fail. Any solution to our present crisis must preserve our essential economic freedom.

“Congress should delay consideration of any legislation until the facts and competing solutions can be fully debated, consider alternatives to massive government spending and figure out how to pay for the solution through budget cuts and reform instead of more debt or taxes.

“Congress must not hastily embrace a cure that may do more harm to our economy than the disease of bad debt

“Before any bailout is enacted, Congress must set itself on an unalterable path to truly overhaul these Government Sponsored Enterprises from the top down and hold those accountable, in and out of government, who drove them, and our financial sector, to the brink of bankruptcy. Some important work is already underway, but additional reforms are needed. Even now, we read that the Treasury Department is using Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase many of these bad mortgages while it seeks the authority to purchase them all. Congress should also ensure that these GSEs can no longer pose a systemic risk to the entire economy while placing them on a brisk schedule to be fully private companies with no guarantee of taxpayer support in times of trouble. And Congress should immediately repeal the Affordable Housing Fund, which will actually siphon off capital from these under-capitalized entities, in order to fund left-wing, third party organizations.

“Next, Congress must consider all available options to put our nation’s economy back on its feet. There are no easy answers but there are alternatives to massive government spending.

“Indexing the Capital Gains tax to inflation (which the Treasury Department can do without any help from Congress), or suspending it for one year, would release an enormous amount of capitol into our economy. Passing an energy bill that lessens the price of gasoline at the pump through more domestic drilling, wind, solar, nuclear and conservation would bring relief to family budgets and create American jobs. Establishing an entitlement reform commission to develop bipartisan solutions to the crushing weight of entitlements would strengthen the American dollar.

“These and other alternatives to a massive federal bailout must be fully considered and debated before Congress acts.

“Finally, any new expenditure of taxpayer dollars should be paid for with fiscal discipline and reform. If Congress decides to spend nearly 1 trillion dollars on a corporate bailout, it must find budget savings to prevent that cost from being passed along to the American people.

“We must address this crisis with forethought, creativity and fiscal discipline. Protecting the American taxpayer from higher debt and taxes and renewing our belief in the power of the free market must be our guide.”

I hope I hear more politicians echoing his sentiments in the next days and weeks ahead.

Moral of the Story, Don’t Do What the Government Says

2008-09-22T23:45:00.000-07:00

So the government wants to spend roughly a TRILLION dollars of your and my money to bail out banks from around the world who hold too much bad mortgage debt. Why are they holding this bad debt? Because they either gave mortgages to people who could not afford to pay them back or they bought these mortgages from other banks at a discount. Why did these banks lend money to people who had no business borrowing that much money? Because the government told them to. Why did the government tell them to? Because more people owning houses is apparently more important than more people actually being able to afford to own houses.
Should the government be responsible for bailing out these huge banks? Maybe. The government is responsible for these banks issuing hundreds of billions of dollars in loans to people who should not have qualified for these loans in the first place. So in that sense the government should be responsible for fixing a problem they caused. HOWEVER, most solutions the government implements are usually worse than the problems that they created, so it could actually be better for everyone if they did nothing at all.
Listening to the random news shows on TV, many people are criticizing the proposed plan because it only helps the wealthy banking industry and leaves out the poor people who are facing foreclosure. The poor people who can’t pay the loans that they never should have received in the first place is that cause of the problem. If the government does some sort of bail out of these people I hope that there are riots in every street of the country for rewarding people for being stupid at the expense of those smart enough to not get in this situation.
Is there more to this whole situation? Probably. Ultimately it will mean that I’ll need good credit in order to get a mortgage in the next few years.

Reading List 2008

2008-09-15T22:24:00.004-07:00

Here's the list of all books I recall reading so far this year. For the sake of simplicity, listening to the audio book on my Zen will count as reading. I think this is about average for me, but this is the first year in several that I've actually tried to keep track.

1984*
   George Orwell
The Amber Spyglass
   Philip Pullman
Atlas Shrugged
   Ayn Rand
Belles on Their Toes
   Frank & Ernestine Gilbreth
Cheaper by the Dozen
   Frank & Ernestine Gilbreth
Freakonomics
   Steven D. Levitt
Godless
   Ann Coulter
The Golden Compass
   Philip Pullman
Good to Great*
   Jim Collins
Have Space Suit Will Travel
   Robert A. Heinlein
How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)*
   Ann Coulter
If Democrats Had Any Brains They’d Be Republicans
   Ann Coulter
Inventing a Nation
   Gore Vidal
The Millionaire Mind
   Thomas J. Stanley
The Millionaire Next Door*
   Thomas J. Stanley & William D. Danko
Noble Vision
   Gen LaGreca
The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History
   Thomas E. Woods Jr.
The Rolling Stones
   Robert A. Heinlein
The Star Beast
   Robert A. Heinlein
Starship Troopers*
   Robert A. Heinlein
Stranger in a Strange Land
   Robert A. Heinlein
The Subtle Knife
   Philip Pullman
What’s So Great About America
   Dinesh D’Souza
The World is Flat
   Thomas L. Friedman

* Books I've read before

Books in my stack of reading material that I'm currently reading or will be reading soon:
The ACLU vs America
   Alan Sears & Craig Osten
Built to Last
   Jim Collins & Jerry Porras
The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States
   Benjamin F. Morris
The Fountainhead
   Ayn Rand
My Job Went to India (And All I Got Was This Lousy Book)
   Chad Fowler
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress*
   Robert A. Heinlein

Free Pop and Popcorn

2008-08-13T17:40:00.003-07:00

Parkway Plaza Theater is giving away free pop and popcorn to everyone to gives them one of these coupons this weekend. Just print one out per person and enjoy.

I win!

2008-08-13T14:07:00.001-07:00

The Stranger, the more hippy of the ‘news’papers in Seattle wrote an article criticizing the current state superintendant for not being able to answer 3 questions they gave her from the WASL* (Washington Assessment of Student Learning) test. These particular questions are logic problems used to evaluate students’ reasoning processes. Students are instructed to “Write to help explain your best thinking using words, numbers, or pictures” when answering these questions. I believe partial credit is given to those who do not correctly answer them but show how they got their answers. The three questions given to her are as follows:

Tom, Dick and Harry work in a bank. One is the manager, one is the cashier and one is the teller. The teller, who was an only child, earns the least. Harry, who married Tom's sister, earns more than the manager. What position does each person fill?

Penny works in the Package Palace. It is Penny’s job to stamp the sides of packages that are not touching the floor and not touching another package. Today there are 25 packages on the floor. Penny put the packages into 5 stacks, and the sides of the stacks touch. How many sides of packages must penny stamp.

The local recycling plant has just bought a new metal compactor that produces a smaller cube of scrap iron than does the older machine. Somebody noticed, however, that the combined volumes of one cube from each compactor was numerically the same as the combined lengths of all their edges. What are the dimensions of the cubes, if you consider only integral solutions?

The superintendant, Terry Bergeson, only attempted the first two questions and got both of them wrong. I tried and got all three right, therefore I’m now accepting write in votes for the position as the new State School Superintendant.

*The WASL test was put together by a panel of teachers and representatives from the largest employers in Washington to evaluate the basic knowledge and reasoning abilities of Washington high school students. Those who pass the test show that they meet a satisfactory level of reasoning ability required to be hired by these companies. Sadly, few students pass every section of this test on their first attempt, and most teachers (including the superintendant) fail as well.

It Is Finished

2008-07-22T21:31:00.002-07:00

The massive printing project at the shop is done and I'm no longer working nights. Tomorrow will be the first day since 26 June that I have not worked at least part of the day (counting a day as 00:00-23:59). Given that I've seen more sunrises in the last month than I have in the last few years combined, I'm planning to start going to bed a bit earlier now.

I have a new computer, an HP Pavilion DV9657cl laptop, being the first complete computer I've ever purchased for myself, and the only one I've owned that had 100% stock parts. This will change when RAM goes on sale as I'll upgrade it to 4GB and possibly rip the entire thing apart and apply a tube of Arctic Silver 5 liberally to all the hot parts. It's got a 17" screen, HD-DVD drive, 320GB of hard drive, an nVidia 8600M GS video card, and most importantly a numpad. It weighs slightly less than a textbook and I get 3+ hours of battery life when in the balanced power mode.

Dark Knight for the Win

2008-07-19T17:30:00.003-07:00

Last night we saw Dark Knight at the Valley Drive In. We were expecting to have to wait until after Journey to the Center of the Earth to see Batman in the double feature, but they decided that since most of the people going were planning on seeing Dark Knight they were going to show it first. It was also the busiest I've ever seen the drive in, with the gates opening a half hour earlier than planned just to accommodate the extra crowds. Sadly it was not dark enough to see it well for the first half of the movie, so some of the darker scenes were very hard to make out. Also it took us a while to get the sound at an optimum balance of bass and treble to hear it well. Neither sound or video were that bad but they definitely detracted from the movie experience as a whole. I will therefore reserve judgment on the quality of the movie until after seeing it in IMAX next week. Other than that, it really was a very good movie and very much deserving of it's new record for the highest grossing box office receipts for a single day, estimated to beat Spiderman 3 by several million dollars.

Three in a Row

2008-07-14T13:55:00.000-07:00

Last night was the third night in a row I went to bed before sunrise. I’m really tired of my work schedule right now, but not because of the hours. I’m tired of it because I’m really tired on the days that I want to do things with people, because it means getting up many hours before my body is ready to wake up, thanks to being used to going to bed between 5 and 7 in the mornings.
What else seems important right now..? My parents celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary this past week. I got my truck fixed with my grandpa’s help so it should get me from point A to point B for a few more years to come. I acquired a new computer thanks to eBay; I’ll completely finish it with parts from Fry’s Labor Day or Thanksgiving sales, but I’ve got more than enough parts sitting around to make it fully functional until then.

Weird

2008-07-08T12:47:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday I had one of the weirdest experiences I’ve had in very long time. I was talking with random people at church after second service and noticed my mom and sisters talking to some random woman I’ve never seen before. One of my sisters comes over and says something to me that I can’t remember. My mom then points to me and mentions that I’m her other son. Then the lady asks if I’m the girls’ younger brother.

I’ve gotten used to people asking if I was my brother’s younger brother since he’s been taller than me for years and has been gaining weight so he’s bigger than me too, despite the fact that I’m 2 ½ years older than him. But this was the first time anyone has asked if I’m the younger brother of my baby sisters (they’re 9 ½ years younger than me). It might be one thing if they were bigger or taller than me, but I’ve got them beat in every measurement.

Goodbye Sonics

2008-07-06T10:37:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday a settlement was reached between the city of Seattle and the owners of the Sonics and the team will be leaving for Oklahoma City. As I’ve never cared for basketball, other than for a Super NES basketball game, I’m rather glad to see them go. Now I don’t have to worry about programs on the TV and radio being preempted by basketball games. Many people are panicked and angry because this might mean the end of professional basketball in the region. To that I say “I hope so.” What I would really like would be for Seattle to acquire a professional hockey team instead. I have fond memories of attending minor league hockey games with friends and family in the past and would actually go to see hockey games if they were available.
The city is hoping that the state will raise some tax to give them half a billion dollars or so to renovate Key Arena in order to try to persuade a new team to come to Seattle. I vote that if a new team wants to come here and are dissatisfied with the current facilities (where were completely renovated 15 years ago or so at great expense) that the owners pay the full expense of these desired upgrades.

Happy Birthday USA

2008-07-05T00:44:00.000-07:00

As everyone knows, Wednesday was the 232nd anniversary of the independence of the American colonies from England. Although we observe (with illuminations) the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on the 4th every year. I vote that we continue to celebrate both days as long as we are legally allowed to do so, and then even more so after that point. There are those who claim that our independence is not something worth celebrating, I say that they can move to Palestine or Cuba or some other 3rd world crap hole that they admire more than the US.

Frogpole

2008-07-02T00:15:00.002-07:00

Here's a picture I took of a frogpole (not quite a tadpole anymore, still not quite a frog) on Sunday.

Right now Deviant Art is my only real hosting service for pictures, and I've been posting new things to Deviant more frequently than I've been blogging in recent months. I'm taking a short break at the print shop right now and will be getting back to work momentarily.

Working

2008-07-01T02:12:00.004-07:00

I'm sitting at the print shop right now for the sixth night in a row. Babysitting laser printers isn't very hard or exciting after a few hours; they will run unattended for over an hour. I need to keep emptying the top tray so that there's still room for more paper to come out. I also keep the paper trays full so there's no risk of running out of paper. Once I have a large stack of books printed I take them back to the cutter and jog them up, cut them in half, and box them for safe storage. During the rest of the time I keep busy with random tasks and I keep myself entertained here alone by listening to music and audio books on my headphones. I just started The Golden Compass. I'm working 6ish to 3ish every night and try to wake up by noon every day. That's my schedule until further notice.

I'm also keeping myself busy by reading books on various Adobe programs. Right now I'm going through a book on Illustrator CS3. I know a bit about Illustrator already but I really would like to learn how to do much more than I can at the moment.

Deviations

2008-06-26T01:37:00.000-07:00

Today I started posting some stuff onto my Deviant Art page. I don’t have very much artsy stuff to share with the world so I’m starting with so picture from Soos Creek Trail from Tuesday. (I thought the trail was about 4 miles long, but Brenda and I found out that it’s closer to 11 miles round trip from end to end). We walked about 4 ½ miles before turning around at the park and heading back to the car. We also took over 150 pictures, a few of which are now on Deviant Art. See them here if you care to have a look.