Slashdot Moment In TimE
This is an experimental entry of sorts that was first proposed by Slashdot member Koria Desevis. Koria handed the project off to me as she had to attend to other issues. The idea was that for a given moment in time, those folks in the immediate Slashdot community would render a snapshot of their lives. Given the ease of publishing on the Internet, any sort of content could be included such as an include newspaper clippings, summaries of happenings during your day, specific chains of thoughts, accounts of conversations, poetry, pictures drawn during meetings, code written, maps etc...etc...etc... Initially I was going to distribute this as a pdf, but a variety of media was received including video of ducks from johndiii. To facilitate distribution, I figured this was the best place to put it as I have no bandwidth limitations here. A pdf sans video will also be forthcoming.
The day chosen was July 15th, a couple of weeks were given as a deadline for receipt of materials, and without further ado, I give you the first SMITE. All entries are in alphabetical order of the Slashdot user ID.
~Ashtead
Introduction.
I'm known as Ashtead on slashdot. This is for the
SMITE project (Slashdot community Moment In TimeE) what I did on July 15 2005.
Unfortunately, I forgot to take any pictures, so some of the photographic
evidence has had to be re-created later.
Begin the day.
Up at 0700
My sister sent a text message last night. She and
her family are going to the cottage in Helgeroa, and I'm invited to go there any
time I want.
So today will feature a drive of about 180 km. Of
which the first third will be mostly freeway, the rest will be 2-lane roads. The
actual route will be E18 to the Island interchange, then highway 32 towards
Hvittingfoss, highway 40 from there to Larvik, then 302 to Helgeroa. It is
possible to go E18 all the way to Larvik, but the southern end is 2-lane with
way too much traffic. One slow truck and everything else becomes slow. Accidents
are common and these are very disruptive. So I'd prefer the longer but more
pleasant inner road.
I replaced the hot-water pipe in the washroom
yesterday. The old one was zigzagging all around, since it had been there since
before the sink was installed. I still have the cold-water one to do, and fix
the drains. The big job is the platform for the washing-machine; I haven't done
anything about that yet.
The day started slow enough, reading about SCO on
Groklaw and see what has happened on Slashdot. I've got modpoints again I
notice. And it looks like the birds have discovered the cherries outside here.
This week has been a short break, we decided that on last Friday. Monday it is
back to work as per usual.
The cherry tree, now mostly devoid of cherries on
account of the birds, but one have to be airborne to be able to pick most of
them anyways.
The breakfast table with the news. "Ny
kreftgåte" means "New cancer riddle". The man in green is Thor
Hushovd.
It is also raining today for the first time in
about 3 weeks. There is not much rain, just enough to make the road outside
wet.
Breakfast consisted of three pieces of bread with
a can of mackerel in tomato and the morning paper,
Aftenposten.
The big front page items were an article (on pages 4 and 5) about the mystery of
breast cancer seeming more lethal the higher the education of the sufferer, and
a big picture of Thor Hushovd in a green jersey having won the previous day's
part of Tour de France.
(Later)
I made sure to pack necessary tools. We had been
talking about changing the downspout on the gutter at the lowest end of the
cottage, basically moving the downspout from one end to the other, so they would
be rid of the long downpipe, through which ants had been known to crawl up and
take up residence in the roof structure... besides the thing was just
unsightly.
The gutter is the usual covered steel variety, so
I told them to get hold of a new connector, since the old one didn't look like
it could be dismantled and moved. Then I could fix the rest. From having fixed
the roof fan here, I had some of the Tette
Tak paste left. This is a wonderful
material, it is an elastic glue, but nasty in that is is black and spills on
clothes never go away. Not something for small nieces to get on their fingers
either... It proved great for sealing the cracks in the outside structure, where
the cable for the roof fan entered the roof, and this should be useful for this
gutter-job as
well.
The Tette
Tak tube, Still some of it
left.
The toolbox. Angle grinder and hearing protectors
are visible.
So here I go with the angle grinder, the toolbox
and the tube of Tette
Tak.
The trip down was not quite as easy as thought.
This is friday afternoon, and everyone else of the 150000 people in Asker and
Bærum seemed to be on their way south also. Then there was this guy whose
trailer load had shed a couple pieces of furniture, and he was running about on
the freeway trying to pick up the pieces before he himself or the pieces were
run over.
After that, the freeway started clogging up
outside Drammen, and I decided I would take the Drammen Ring, then the 283 which
we call "El Camino Real" towards Hokksund, then E134 to Skollenborg, 286 to
highway 40, Lågendalsveien, through Hvittingfoss to Larvik as per the
original plan. All of this is 2-lane roads, of fair to high
standard.
We've come to call the part of 283 out of Drammen,
which used to be the E76, then renumbered to 11, then to E134 until the new
highway on the south side opened... we call it "El Camino Real" from its
similarity with the road of that name in the San Francisco Bay Area: It is
4-lane road with lots of traffic lights and businesses either side, Before the
new road on the south side of Drammen was built, this was horribly
congested.
Actually, this moniker "El Camino Real" is
appropriate for another reason, as this is on the alinement of the old royal
highway from the 1600s, where the King wanted a direct and safe route for moving
the silver from the mines in Kongsberg to the capital, Christiania, which today
is known as Oslo.
I continued with no further congestion towards
Hvittingfoss. Seems everyone wants to sit in line on E18 instead of using
alternate roads that flow freely.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station
wagon loaded with CDs... the latency might be a bit on the longer side however.
Also, I've not yet seen any attempts at implementing TCP/IP with them, the way
it was done with carrier pigeons.
While driving, I listened to some various CDs.
Started with one from Katthult, then Counting Crows, All Saints, and later
Hellbillies. It turned out to be longer trip than planned. The car doesn't have
much in the way of a music system, so I use a portable "ghetto-blaster" CD
player and power it off the car through a 12 V to 220 V inverter.
Just north of Hvittingfoss, my sister sent a text
message and wondered how far I had got. Evidently, there had been accidents and
heavy traffic around Larvik, and they were stuck in this, just from doing
shopping, so I did well turning off E18 when I did. And only about 60 kilometers
to go. I later saw in the news that there had been two accidents on the bad part
of E18 that afternoon. Minor ones, but still very disruptive.
The rest of the trip proceeded without any further
ado, and I came to the cottage in Helgeroa before my sister, her husband, and
their 3 daughters had made it back from their shopping expedition. By now it was
past 6 PM. The two youngest of the girls had fallen asleep on the way, so we
were very quiet around the cars, at least until they woke up. Then they did most
of the work putting an end to the quiet...
We had pasta and meat in tomato for dinner. I also
had brought a 2-liter box of red wine, so we were enjoying ourselves. Any real
work was done the following
day.
Since this turned into a road trip more than
anything else, I drew a map, by hand from another paper map. It is not quite to
scale, but there is about 40 km from Oslo to Drammen, and 150 km from Stabekk to
Helgeroa along highways E18, 32, 40, and 302. Interesting roads are shown red,
major rivers and the Fjord are blue. I started out at Stabekk, near the top, and
headed for Helgeroa, bottom left.
SMITE entry for bethanie
Scene: Tonight, Thursday, 28 July 2005
Not the assigned moment in time, but that didn’t work for me, which is pretty typical in and of itself. Plans are always approached with trepidation, with half a mind that the whole thing may well blow up in my face, or rather, just not happen.
The moments I capture here are not a perfectly typical scene, but representative in their unique aspects. When I stop and think about it, there’s not very much that is purely “typical” of my life – every day brings new conversations, new interests, new conflicts. But there is plenty of repetition in the sorts of things that take place. Tonight was as perfect an example as I could ask for.
Hubby stayed particularly late at work putting out a fire that started this afternoon. I got his call around 7:15 pm, just after I had pulled into the garage, arriving home after a day of “celebrating” the sales tax holiday.
I spent the intervening time between Hubby’s call to let me know he’d be late, his second call to let me know he was on his way home, and his actual arrival putting away the school supplies we’d purchased, transferring our two new guppies into the fish tank, nursing Squirt, feeding some old meat from the fridge to the dog, trying futilely to combat the clutter, calling Kiddo over to listen to the toad croaking on our back deck, and cooking a very basic supper of grilled cheese sandwiches & tomato basil soup for us grownups and reheated white rice for Kiddo, per her request. Squirt got prunes, grapes, and white rice, as well.
Hubby walked in the door at around 10:15 pm. I quickly finished the poopy diaper I was in the middle of changing and greeted him with a smile, an affectionate embrace, and the announcement that supper was ready as soon as he’d care to eat it. Within 5 minutes, we were at the table.
We talked about our day, about Hubby’s work, and the fact that we all had eaten food from the same restaurant for lunch (of course, his was a catered box lunch; Kiddo, Squirt, and I had treated ourselves while “in town” shopping).
A snippet from supper conversation:
Me:
(to Hubby, an avid Diet Coke
drinker) Apparently Diet Coke isn’t
macho.
Hubby: Oh,
really?
Me: Yup. I
was listening on Marketplace
on the way home tonight about how Coke
introduced Coke Zero to appeal to young men for whom Diet Coke wasn’t
‘macho.’ They were trying to appeal to people who would otherwise
not consider drinking a diet soda because it wasn’t ‘macho’
enough.
Hubby:
(smirking)
So, they take their Coke Zero to drink while they drive their SUVs because they
don’t want to be seen driving minivans….?
Me:
(laughing
heartily) Oh, man. That’s so choice. I
hadn’t even thought of it that way!
(appreciating how easily he makes me
laugh, I get serious for a
moment)
I love
you!
We continued talking and I proposed that I thought it was time to buy an MP3 player.
“But you have two kids to listen to – why do you need an MP3 player?” Hubby asked wryly. “You could even ask them to sing, if you want music!”
I ignored his remark and clarified that it would be mostly for audio books, particularly Harry Potter. I’d like to be able to listen to them someplace other than in the car and at my computer – like take them to bed and listen as I’m falling asleep.
He considered this, and I mentioned, “Kiddo’s history textbook, I have discovered, is also available on CD.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And what would purpose would it serve to buy that?”
“Well, I suppose that it would be most useful so that the text could be listened to multiple times without my having to read it aloud multiple times. We could also listen to it in the car, and Kiddo could listen to it on her own, in her room. Keep in mind,” I added, “That we’re going to be using this book twice (at least), and this book on CD would probably have very good resale value. I could rip it, burn it, and just turn right around and sell it.”
“’Rip, burn, resell’ – it’s the latest line of Apple products!” chirped Hubby.
During this portion of our conversation, Kiddo had begun serving herself more rice. I failed to pay close attention until she had added another huge mound of rice to her plate, after having eaten a very large serving already, and mooching a half a sandwich and some of my soup – of which she ate two bites and then turned aside – as well. I don’t mind sharing my food or allowing her to eat as much as she pleases, particularly of the nutritious stuff – but we do have a rule when serving ourselves: Take what you like, but eat what you take!
I told her in a warning tone, “Whoa! That’s enough rice! I want to see every grain of that rice eaten since you served yourself that much!!”
Hubby naturally piped up with his own clever adaptation of Monty Python’s lyrics:
Ev-er-y grain is sacred
Ev-er-y grain is good…
And I filled in:
Ev’ry grain gets eaten
In our neighborhoooood!
We continued back and forth, rehashing and reminding each other of the words to the song, grinning at how well “grain” fits in where “sperm” should go. Kiddo watched us both with a very amused look on her face, wondering where we must have learned such a silly song. If only she knew! Ah well, she will soon enough!!
After that, we began reminiscing about Monty Python movies. I admitted that Meaning of Life was the first MP movie I’d seen – on video, when I was 15 years old – and that I really didn’t get it at first. But then they got into the reproduction jokes and my sense of humor kicked in.
Hubby recalled riding his bicycle down to the local theater to see Holy Grail. I shrugged and said, “Well, I was WAY too young to see it in the theater. If you were riding your bike, I was, what, 5 – maybe 6 at the time?” It was one of the rare instances when the 10 years’ age difference between Hubby and me ever comes up.
Soon, the meal was over and it was time to clean up. I had made some delicious rice pudding quite late the night before. It hadn’t been done by the time he needed to go to bed, so Hubby hadn’t had a chance to taste it yet. I sidled up to him, wrapped my arms around his neck, and whispered suggestively, “So… Can I tempt you to sample some of my… puddin’?”
“Mmmmm…. Puuuuuddinnnn’…,” he groaned, never one to pass up the chance to use a Homer Simpson line.
Kiddo got up from the table and bounced around chattering in that inimitable way that 4-year-olds have at a quarter till 11 at night; Squirt fussed in her high chair, unhappy at no longer having my nearby, though divided, attention; and Hubby got settled on the sofa with the local paper while I dished him up some dessert.
Then I whisked Squirt off to the bathtub, shaking what rice I could off of her as I walked through the house, making a mental note to get out the vacuum tomorrow.
When we emerged 15 minutes later, freshly bathed and pajamafied, we found Hubby curled up with Kiddo on the couch, reading through her newly covered history textbook. He looked up at me and asked, “What’s a starfish?”
“An invertebrate,” I replied, without thinking. “It’s an echinoderm. That means ‘spiny skin.’”
Inwardly, I marveled at how I manage to recall this stuff – that particular tidbit was from a science unit on Oceanography in 5th grade. I can see signs of this steel-trap memory in Kiddo. On the one hand, it pleases me because it will make it so much easier for her to learn if she can retain facts. On the other hand, it scares the bejeezus out of me because she’s also going to remember every horrible parenting mistake I ever make. Oh well. More power to her – let her get rich having her memoirs made into a movie. Another mental note to self: Have a fit about wire hangers tomorrow, just to make Kiddo cry. Just kidding.
After but a few minutes of this sweet, familial bliss, Hubby excused himself off to bed. “I feel horsewhipped!” he admitted. And he has to get up and get into the office as early as he can tomorrow, to finish fixing this problem that arose today.
It was 11:27 pm as he came up behind the futon where I was seated, clicking through emails with one hand and supporting my breast with the other while Squirt bounced up and down on my leg as she nursed. I tilted my chin up for our final kiss of the evening, and he bade me good-night.
When Squirt squirmed off my lap a couple minutes later, I headed into the kitchen to make sure the leftovers made it into the fridge. The dirty dishes will wait until Hubby does them in the morning – or he may very well leave them for me, since he’s putting in extra time & effort at the office. I wouldn’t mind. It’s not a frequent occurrence, and if I can chip in to make his life more bearable, I’m happy to do it. That’s the beauty of the partnership.
I notified Kiddo it was bedtime, took down the kiddie gate blocking access to the stairs (which is the only thing preventing Squirt from getting a broken neck at least 4 times a day), and hustled both kids up the steps. I noticed a pungent smell emanating from Squirt’s rear-end, briefly debated whether or not to take her back downstairs to change it, resolved not to impede our progress, and continued up the stairs.
Kiddo decided tonight to just wear PJ bottoms – no shirt. She popped into the bathroom to get her teeth brushed and I observed, “You don’t have your jammie top on.”
“Well, I’m just going to wear this [my jammie bottoms] tonight.”
“Ooooooh-K!” said I, after the most miniscule moment of considering whether this was a battle worth fighting or not.
I brushed their teeth. Is it gross, bad, lazy, or pragmatic (or all of the above) to use the same toothbrush on both kids’ teeth? I did make sure to rinse it off between kids… Oh well. Not as if it’s going to make a lick of difference now.
So I brushed their teeth, afforded Kiddo her desired privacy for her ritualistic pre-bedtime pit stop, and we all bounced into her bed for as many pages of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as Squirt’s odorous diaper and fairly short temper would permit.
After reading time was up, I took Kiddo’s request for what CD she’d like to lull her to sleep; gave her one zillion and three bedtime kisses, a few words of gentle praise and appreciation for the day we had shared, and a gentle pinch on the butt; and corralled Squirt out of the room as I turned off the light.
Downstairs again, there was another poopy diaper to change (grapes and carrots, FYI – just ask me how I’m so certain!) and back to our spot on the futon, in front of the laptop, to nurse to sleep. It didn’t take more than 15 minutes of suckling and shifting around for Squirt to doze off for good. In the meantime, I began writing up this little composition.
Not every night is so late or so rushed. Not every supper comes off so smoothly, just as Hubby walks through the door. Not every night sees such patient, loving attention paid to our children.
But generally speaking, this is my life.
There are dirty diapers to change, non-stop chatter to attend to, messes to clean up after, dishes to wash… There are also lots and lots of hugs and kisses and “I love you”s and warm, tender moments that happen so often I couldn’t keep count even if I paid really, really close attention.
So I don’t. I just try to sit down every once in a while and reflect on memorable bits of my day, and realize that this really is just about as wonderful as I could ever have imagined it to be. I really couldn’t ask for anything more.
We continued talking and I proposed that I thought it was time to buy an MP3 player.
“But you have two kids to listen to – why do you need an MP3 player?” Hubby asked wryly. “You could even ask them to sing, if you want music!”
I ignored his remark and clarified that it would be mostly for audio books, particularly Harry Potter. I’d like to be able to listen to them someplace other than in the car and at my computer – like take them to bed and listen as I’m falling asleep.
He considered this, and I mentioned, “Kiddo’s history textbook, I have discovered, is also available on CD.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And what would purpose would it serve to buy that?”
“Well, I suppose that it would be most useful so that the text could be listened to multiple times without my having to read it aloud multiple times. We could also listen to it in the car, and Kiddo could listen to it on her own, in her room. Keep in mind,” I added, “That we’re going to be using this book twice (at least), and this book on CD would probably have very good resale value. I could rip it, burn it, and just turn right around and sell it.”
“’Rip, burn, resell’ – it’s the latest line of Apple products!” chirped Hubby.
During this portion of our conversation, Kiddo had begun serving herself more rice. I failed to pay close attention until she had added another huge mound of rice to her plate, after having eaten a very large serving already, and mooching a half a sandwich and some of my soup – of which she ate two bites and then turned aside – as well. I don’t mind sharing my food or allowing her to eat as much as she pleases, particularly of the nutritious stuff – but we do have a rule when serving ourselves: Take what you like, but eat what you take!
I told her in a warning tone, “Whoa! That’s enough rice! I want to see every grain of that rice eaten since you served yourself that much!!”
Hubby naturally piped up with his own clever adaptation of Monty Python’s lyrics:
Ev-er-y grain is sacred
Ev-er-y grain is good…
And I filled in:
Ev’ry grain gets eaten
In our neighborhoooood!
We continued back and forth, rehashing and reminding each other of the words to the song, grinning at how well “grain” fits in where “sperm” should go. Kiddo watched us both with a very amused look on her face, wondering where we must have learned such a silly song. If only she knew! Ah well, she will soon enough!!
After that, we began reminiscing about Monty Python movies. I admitted that Meaning of Life was the first MP movie I’d seen – on video, when I was 15 years old – and that I really didn’t get it at first. But then they got into the reproduction jokes and my sense of humor kicked in.
Hubby recalled riding his bicycle down to the local theater to see Holy Grail. I shrugged and said, “Well, I was WAY too young to see it in the theater. If you were riding your bike, I was, what, 5 – maybe 6 at the time?” It was one of the rare instances when the 10 years’ age difference between Hubby and me ever comes up.
Soon, the meal was over and it was time to clean up. I had made some delicious rice pudding quite late the night before. It hadn’t been done by the time he needed to go to bed, so Hubby hadn’t had a chance to taste it yet. I sidled up to him, wrapped my arms around his neck, and whispered suggestively, “So… Can I tempt you to sample some of my… puddin’?”
“Mmmmm…. Puuuuuddinnnn’…,” he groaned, never one to pass up the chance to use a Homer Simpson line.
Kiddo got up from the table and bounced around chattering in that inimitable way that 4-year-olds have at a quarter till 11 at night; Squirt fussed in her high chair, unhappy at no longer having my nearby, though divided, attention; and Hubby got settled on the sofa with the local paper while I dished him up some dessert.
Then I whisked Squirt off to the bathtub, shaking what rice I could off of her as I walked through the house, making a mental note to get out the vacuum tomorrow.
When we emerged 15 minutes later, freshly bathed and pajamafied, we found Hubby curled up with Kiddo on the couch, reading through her newly covered history textbook. He looked up at me and asked, “What’s a starfish?”
“An invertebrate,” I replied, without thinking. “It’s an echinoderm. That means ‘spiny skin.’”
Inwardly, I marveled at how I manage to recall this stuff – that particular tidbit was from a science unit on Oceanography in 5th grade. I can see signs of this steel-trap memory in Kiddo. On the one hand, it pleases me because it will make it so much easier for her to learn if she can retain facts. On the other hand, it scares the bejeezus out of me because she’s also going to remember every horrible parenting mistake I ever make. Oh well. More power to her – let her get rich having her memoirs made into a movie. Another mental note to self: Have a fit about wire hangers tomorrow, just to make Kiddo cry. Just kidding.
After but a few minutes of this sweet, familial bliss, Hubby excused himself off to bed. “I feel horsewhipped!” he admitted. And he has to get up and get into the office as early as he can tomorrow, to finish fixing this problem that arose today.
It was 11:27 pm as he came up behind the futon where I was seated, clicking through emails with one hand and supporting my breast with the other while Squirt bounced up and down on my leg as she nursed. I tilted my chin up for our final kiss of the evening, and he bade me good-night.
When Squirt squirmed off my lap a couple minutes later, I headed into the kitchen to make sure the leftovers made it into the fridge. The dirty dishes will wait until Hubby does them in the morning – or he may very well leave them for me, since he’s putting in extra time & effort at the office. I wouldn’t mind. It’s not a frequent occurrence, and if I can chip in to make his life more bearable, I’m happy to do it. That’s the beauty of the partnership.
I notified Kiddo it was bedtime, took down the kiddie gate blocking access to the stairs (which is the only thing preventing Squirt from getting a broken neck at least 4 times a day), and hustled both kids up the steps. I noticed a pungent smell emanating from Squirt’s rear-end, briefly debated whether or not to take her back downstairs to change it, resolved not to impede our progress, and continued up the stairs.
Kiddo decided tonight to just wear PJ bottoms – no shirt. She popped into the bathroom to get her teeth brushed and I observed, “You don’t have your jammie top on.”
“Well, I’m just going to wear this [my jammie bottoms] tonight.”
“Ooooooh-K!” said I, after the most miniscule moment of considering whether this was a battle worth fighting or not.
I brushed their teeth. Is it gross, bad, lazy, or pragmatic (or all of the above) to use the same toothbrush on both kids’ teeth? I did make sure to rinse it off between kids… Oh well. Not as if it’s going to make a lick of difference now.
So I brushed their teeth, afforded Kiddo her desired privacy for her ritualistic pre-bedtime pit stop, and we all bounced into her bed for as many pages of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as Squirt’s odorous diaper and fairly short temper would permit.
After reading time was up, I took Kiddo’s request for what CD she’d like to lull her to sleep; gave her one zillion and three bedtime kisses, a few words of gentle praise and appreciation for the day we had shared, and a gentle pinch on the butt; and corralled Squirt out of the room as I turned off the light.
Downstairs again, there was another poopy diaper to change (grapes and carrots, FYI – just ask me how I’m so certain!) and back to our spot on the futon, in front of the laptop, to nurse to sleep. It didn’t take more than 15 minutes of suckling and shifting around for Squirt to doze off for good. In the meantime, I began writing up this little composition.
Not every night is so late or so rushed. Not every supper comes off so smoothly, just as Hubby walks through the door. Not every night sees such patient, loving attention paid to our children.
But generally speaking, this is my life.
There are dirty diapers to change, non-stop chatter to attend to, messes to clean up after, dishes to wash… There are also lots and lots of hugs and kisses and “I love you”s and warm, tender moments that happen so often I couldn’t keep count even if I paid really, really close attention.
So I don’t. I just try to sit down every once in a while and reflect on memorable bits of my day, and realize that this really is just about as wonderful as I could ever have imagined it to be. I really couldn’t ask for anything more.
I had to run downtown to the federal building early
in the morning to run an errand. This is a sculpture out front that gives away
the age of the original building back in the 60's. It was completely renovated
just a couple of years ago with a new shell and added security.
Riding to the south a bit to pick up the light rail
I captured this image of the Well Fargo
building.
Central Salt Lake City is actually quite a nice
place to ride your bike through with bike lanes and a public transportation
system up the hill to the medical center where I captured this image of our new
building under construction. Provided we stay, we should be moving into the new
building next
June.
The rest of the day was spent behind my computer screens (2) which will soon be replaced with a single 30in Cinema display. The manuscript will be the sixth manuscript submitted this year, mostly based upon work that came out of my dissertation. I tried to tell the whole story in the first couple of papers, but it turns out the story is more complicated than previously believed. Truth be told, two of the papers this year have been reviews, so that makes four papers with new material and two reviews. Still not a bad count at this point in the year.
The rest of the day was spent behind my computer screens (2) which will soon be replaced with a single 30in Cinema display. The manuscript will be the sixth manuscript submitted this year, mostly based upon work that came out of my dissertation. I tried to tell the whole story in the first couple of papers, but it turns out the story is more complicated than previously believed. Truth be told, two of the papers this year have been reviews, so that makes four papers with new material and two reviews. Still not a bad count at this point in the year.
July 15, 2005
On this particular day I decided that I would deliver on a promise to my family and I made soft pretzels for my wife and children. I do not have the very best recipe, and I will accept good suggestions for new recipes, but for now I have this one working. My regret is that it is not a slow-rise recipe, so the pretzels are not as good as they could be, but they still are better than Super Pretzel or Auntie Anne’s by a pretty good stretch as long as they are eaten fresh.
Anyway, I grabbed the digital camera and I put together a collage of the process.
Here is my recipe in its present form.
Dough:
1 packages active dry yeast
1¼ cup warm water
1/8 – ¼ teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt
4 - 5 cups white flour
coarse salt (optional)
Water Bath:
4 cups water
4 teaspoons baking soda
Dissolve yeast in 1/4 cup water. Stir in remaining water and add sugar. Pour yeast mixture into a bowl, add salt, and beat in flour to make a stiff dough. Knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Place dough in a greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled, about 45 minutes.
Prepare water bath by bringing water and baking soda to a boil. Reduce to a simmer once the boiling point is reached.
Divide dough into equal portions and roll into long ropes (about 18"), then shape into pretzels. Drop each pretzel into the water bath and leave there until it floats, then remove with a slotted spoon. Place pretzels on a greased baking sheet and bath at 475o F for approximately 12 minutes or until golden.
Well, first I got all of my stuff ready. Yes, this picture is a setup picture that was carefully arranged - so sue me.
The thermometer in the pyrex measuring cup is measuring the temperature of the warm water. It is important to get the temperature to some point between 110o and 130o F.
All right, mixing should look something like the following:
And after kneading:
So, what should one do while the dough is rising? Well, I hung out with my 5-year old and we build the following in his room:
Happy kid. This was a little wooden road set he got for Christmas, and he has spend literally HOURS playing with this track set. The sad part is that I can’t get additional track parts for it – it seems to be a Target item that is no longer stocked. Oh well. We had fun anyway.
After the rising, things get interesting. Shaping gets to be the tedious part:
Dropping them in the boiling water can be a little touchy of you drop them in carelessly. The splash is unpleasant.:
After taking them out, brush with a little butter and put them in the oven.
Finally, after they have finished baking, move them to the wire racks to cool, and what you have should look somewhat like the following:
I got a total of 8 pretzels from the batch and everyone was happy.
~
~Jeremiah Cornelius
I recently lost some 'friends' on /. because the CT level on my JE's was disturbing to them.
I am not an advocate of many of the postulates or conclusions that I have re-posted. I do think that the 'official, consensus version' of events is deliberately distorted, and tells a story that serves power. That is not conspiracy theory, that is a lesson of history.
Question the elements in the official stories with traditional forensic guidelines: Motive, Opportunity and Willingness. These are the three elements that must be present for committing a crime. Add to this the advice that "Deep Throat" told Bob Woodward to use as his test for the plausible: "Follow the money." Also, note the players who use deception as a part of their standard operations and method. Example: In claims between MLK or the FBI, who stands the test of greater veracity? Did you know that the US Government commission on the MLK assasination was successfully impeached in court - demonstrating complicity in covering-up evidence of conspiracy in the matter? In the US itself? In 1999? No James Earl Ray, no "lone-crazed gunman."
What does this information do to the percieved ideas of "conspiracy". Continuing along those lines, is it a conpiracy that kept this judgement from being general public knowledge, while at the same moments O.J. Simpson was being touted "the Trial of the Century?"
Here are some select statements, made in candor, by various figures of interest. I don't know if there is a conspiracy in this - but if taken anywhere near face-value, then this world is a very different place than the one reported in the papers.
"We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order. "
--David Rockefeller
"Oil is much too important a commodity to be left in the hands of the Arabs." --Henry Kissinger
We will have a world government whether you like it or not. The only question is whether that government will be achieved by conquest or consent." Banker Paul Warburg, February 17, 1950, as he testified before the U.S. Senate
All propaganda must be so popular and on such an intellectual level, that even the most stupid of those toward whom it is directed will understand it... Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise. - Adolf Hitler
"I want to tell you something very clear, don't worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it." Ariel Sharon to Shimon Peres, October 3rd, 2001, as reported on Kol Yisrael radio
"No free man shall ever be de-barred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain their right to keep and bear arms is as a last resort to protect themselves against tyranny in government." Thomas Jefferson
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." Thomas Jefferson
"The great masses of people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one. Especially if it is repeated over and over." -- Adolph Hitler
If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator. -- President G. W. Bush
"I never would have agreed to the formulation of the Central Intelligence Agency back in '47, if I had known it would become the American Gestapo. " -- Harry S Truman (1961)
"The interests behind the Bush Administration, such as the CFR, The Trilateral Commission - founded by Brzezinski for David Rockefeller - and the Bilderberger Group, have prepared for and are now moving to implement open world dictatorship within the next five years. They are not fighting against terrorists. They are fighting against citizens." - Dr. Johannes B. Koeppl, Ph.D., former German defense ministry official and advisor to former NATO Secretary General Manfred Werne
"The United States is not nearly so concerned that its acts be kept secret from its intended victims as it is that the American people not know of them." -U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark
"We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order. " -David Rockefeller
"If the New World Order agenda is not realized by the terrorist attacks on America and if American's don't agree to give up their weapons and relinquish their sovereignty to the New World Order, the next attack will be the use of chemical, biological and/or atomic warfare against the American people. The architects of the New World Order will not hesitate to use as a last resort an atomic or hydrogen bomb in a major American city." -Reference Op Ed page of the New York Times 9/24/01
"Once a government resorts to terror against its own population to get what it wants, it must keep using terror against its own population to get what it wants. A government that terrorizes its own people can never stop. If such a government ever lets the fear subside and rational thought return to the populace, that government is finished." -Michael Rivero
"Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful. This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government." -- Henry Kissinger speaking at Evian, France, May 21, 1992 Bilderburgers meeting. Unbeknownst to Kissinger, his speech was taped by a Swiss delegate to the meeting
"We need a common enemy to unite us." - Condoleeza Rice, March 2000
If anybody wants to use Ms. Rice as an example of acheivement, or a proof that people's equality has been achieved in America since 1968, contrast her message with this one I leave you with: "The Drum Major Instinct."
Who'd want to cover up the assasination of the man who said those words for 30 years?
~johndiii
~Js7a
Subject: FDA citizen's petition for OTC modafinil
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2005 14:46:24 -0700
From: James Salsman [~js7a]
To: pblake@cephalon.com
CC: jbender@cephalon.com, fbaldino@cephalon.com
Paul
Blake
Regulatory
Operations
Cephalon,
Inc.
Dear Dr. Blake:
Please find below my citizen's petition requesting
that the FDA allow over-the-counter sales of modafinil (Provigil.) The petition
was submitted June 27 and was assigned docket number
2005P-0265/CP1.
I have no interest or investment in Cephalon,
which might provide some added weight to the petition. However, nothing would
prevent Cephalon from working to expedite this petition if you see fit. I very
much hope that you will do so. I am certain that the petition is clearly in
Cephalon's interest.
I found out about your particle-size patent after
I filed this petition. I have to say that I think it is questionable, not so
much because it's probably weak, but the ethics of such a patent bother me. If
anyone ever asks about my relationship with Cephalon, you are welcome to tell
them that I am an advocate against your modafinil particle-size patent. I don't
intend to spend much time on that, though, and I hope that my opinion won't
interfere with your support of my petition.
Please let me know your thoughts on the petition.
I look forward to your reply. Thank you.
Sincerely,
James
Salsman
P.S. I will refuse any compensation or award.
Should Cephalon feel that this effort deserves recompense, then please
contribute to your local chapter of Big Brothers and Big Sisters of
America.
1910 Mt. Vernon Ct., Apt.
3
Mountain
View, CA 94040
Monday, 27 June 2005
Division of Dockets
Management
Food
and Drug
Administration
Department
of Health and Human
Services
5630
Fishers Lane, rm.
1061
Rockville,
MD
20852
BY
FAX TO 301-827-6870
21 CFR 10.30 CITIZEN PETITION FOR OVER-THE-COUNTER
SALE OF MODAFINIL
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen:
I, the undersigned, submit this petition under
Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Section 10.30, implementing the
Administrative Procedure Act in accordance with the Federal Food, Drug, and
Cosmetic Act, to request that the Commissioner of Food and Drugs take the
following administrative action:
Please eliminate the prescription requirements of
modafinil and allow for its over-the-counter sale.
Modafinil, CAS Reg. No. 68693-11-8, known also by
the trade names Provigil in the U.S. and Alertec in Canada, is currently a
prescription drug used to treat narcolepsy, amphetamine and cocaine addiction,
and for other purposes. Modafinil has been widely prescribed for many years
resulting in substantial beneficial effects without reports of serious
side-effects or any other hazard which would suggest that it is inappropriate
for over-the-counter sale without a prescription.
In adults and to a lesser extent in children,
modafinil causes a reduction in sleepiness and the need for sleep, without
substantially affecting the ability to sleep. It has rare and mild side-effects,
and apparently no long-term drawbacks associated with sleep loss. Modafinil has
had one of the largest "off-label" prescription rates of all prescription drugs,
as it is often prescribed by physicians for relief of fatigue. In practice, many
patients use the drug to reduce their sleep requirements. Fatigue is widespread,
and those suffering from fatigue occasionally or often prefer to alleviate it.
In many if not most cases, relief of severe fatigue is much safer than the
alternative. In many if not most cases, prescription requirements can cause the
cost of access to modafinil to be prohibitive. Those in the lower socioeconomic
classes most likely to suffer from the effects of extreme fatigue often find
prescription requirements prohibitive because they have no access to medical
care other than emergency medical care, or no health insurance, or neither.
Therefore, widespread and easily available over-the-counter access to modafinil
will result in improved public health and safety.
The following news report excerpt is typical of
the medical opinions on modafinil prior to 2000: "Joyce A Walsleben, director of
the Sleep Disorder Center at the New York University School of Medicine, said
that overall, modafinil is good at keeping people awake without side effects.
'Well, one looks at the risks of sleepy people driving and working and clearly
they can be a danger to themselves and others, so improving that is a service,'
she said."
Since then, additional evidence has appeared in
the peer-reviewed medical literature indicating that modafinil is safe,
effective, and beneficial. "Modafinil: new indications for wake promotion," by
J.R. Schwartz in Expert Opinion on Pharmacotherapy, vol. 6, no. 1 (January
2005), pp. 115-129, includes the following abstract: "In January 2004, the
wake-promoting agent, modafinil, was approved in the US for the treatment of
excessive sleepiness (ES) associated with obstructive sleep apnoea/hypopnoea
syndrome (OSAHS) and shift-work sleep disorder (SWSD), representing an expansion
of its labeling from the initial indication for ES associated with narcolepsy. A
total of five randomized, placebo-controlled studies in these three disorders
showed statistically significant benefits on various objective measures and
subjective estimates of ES, including the Multiple Sleep Latency Test,
Maintenance of Wakefulness Test, Epworth Sleepiness Scale and Karolinska
Sleepiness Scale. Significant improvement was also seen in overall clinical
condition (on the Clinical Global Impression of Change) and measures of
sustained attention and reaction time (on the Psychomotor Vigilance Task). The
clinical efficacy of modafinil, combined with improved safety over CNS
stimulants, has made it the most prescribed medication for the treatment of ES
associated with narcolepsy. Modafinil is the only medication approved for ES
associated with OSAHS and SWSD (for OSAHS, it is indicated as an adjunct to
standard treatments for the under-lying obstruction). Unlike many other
medications used for ES, modafinil is not known to be abused. The most common
adverse event reported in clinical studies was headaches; most were transient
and mild-to-moderate in severity. Modafinil also has the potential for
interactions with other drugs metabolized via cytochrome P450 enzyme pathways.
Potential obstacles to the use of modafinil include an under-recognition of ES
and its consequences. Increased education, both of the public and the medical
community, should improve the recognition and therapy of ES."
The safe, effective, and beneficial effects of
modafinil reported in populations of addicted amphetamine and cocaine users also
present a very strong case for the over-the-counter sales of modafinil without
prescriptions, because of the large number of amphetamine and cocaine addicts
who have no access to medical care other than emergency medical care, no health
insurance, neither access or health insurance, or are otherwise reluctant to
approach a physician to discuss their addiction. The medical doctors A. Camacho
and M.B. Stein, in "Modafinil for Social Phobia and Amphetamine Dependence,"
American Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 159 (November 2002), pp. 1947-1948, report
that an amphetamine-dependent 45-year-old caucasian woman's, "craving for
amphetamines diminished, and her anxiety and depression improved," after
treatment with 200 mg modafinil twice per day.
Modafinil is described in the peer-reviewed
medical literature as non-addictive (K.R. Kaufman and R. Gerner, "Modafinil in
sports: ethical considerations," British Journal of Sports Medicine, vol. 39,
no. 4 (April 2005), pp. 241-244) and not known to be abused (Schwartz, op.
cit.)
All of those factual grounds support the
likelihood that a substantial increase in health and public safety will result
from widespread and easily available over-the-counter access to
modafinil.
After receipt of a petition from Blue Cross of
California Pharmacy dated July 21, 1998, the FDA allowed for the continuing
over-the-counter sale of five originally prescription-only antihistamine and
antihistamine/decongestant combination medications because those five
medications were safer than their over-the-counter alternatives. According to
that petition, "Based on recent historical precedent, the cost of the OTC
versions ... will be 50% of the prescription drug cost." No laws or regulations
prohibit the requested administrative action, which is similar to administrative
action requested and granted in accordance with 21 CFR 10.30 in the past decade.
Therefore, legal grounds and recent precedent for the requested administrative
action also exist.
Modafinil has rare and almost entirely mild side
effects similar to many currently available over-the-counter drugs. The American
Society of Health-System Pharmacists lists the following side-effects of
modafinil: headache, upset stomach, nervousness, difficulty falling asleep or
staying asleep, dizziness, depression, diarrhea, runny nose, dry mouth, loss of
appetite, vomiting, neck pain or stiffness, confusion or forgetfulness" M.M.
Mitler, et al., in "Long-term efficacy and safety of modafinil (PROVIGIL®)
for the treatment of excessive daytime sleepiness associated with narcolepsy,"
Sleep Medicine, vol. 1, no. 3 (July 2000), pp. 231-243, reported a study of 478
narcoleptic adults, indicating, "The most common treatment-related adverse
events were headache (13%), nervousness (8%), and nausea (5%). Most adverse
events were mild to moderate in nature." Mitler et al. concluded that,
"Modafinil is effective for the long-term treatment of excessive daytime
sleepiness associated with narcolepsy and significantly improves perceptions of
general health. Modafinil is well tolerated, with no evidence of tolerance
developing during 40 weeks of treatment."
Modafinil interacts with some other drugs
(Schwartz, op. cit.) Drugs which may have reduced effectiveness if taken with
modafinil include cyclosporine (Sandimmune), theophylline, and hormonal
contraceptives such as progestin-only or estrogen and progesterone containing
drugs. The effects of modafinil on hormonal contraceptives occurs if the
hormones are taken by mouth, patch, or implant. Drugs that may show increased
effects or toxicity if taken with modafinil include warfarin (Coumadin),
diazepam (Valium), propranolol (Inderal), imipramine (Tofranil), desipramine
(Norpramin), phenytoin (Dilantin) and mephenytoin (Mesantoin). Some other drugs
that may increase the effectiveness and/or toxicity of modafinil include
carbamazepine (Tegretol), phenobarbital, and rifampin (Rifadin). Other drugs,
such as ketoconazole (Nizoral) and itraconazole (Sporanox) may reduce the
effectiveness of modafinil.
I claim exemption from requirements for an
environmental assessment in accordance with 21 CFR 35.31(b). If 1% of 400 mg
modafinil is excreted per day per user without having being metabolized (Y.N.
Wong, et al., "A double-blind, placebo-controlled, ascending-dose evaluation of
the pharmacokinetics and tolerability of modafinil tablets in healthy male
volunteers," Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, vol. 39, no. 1 (January 1999),
pp. 30-40) then because the average U.S. home produces more than 170 liters of
sewage per resident per day, more than 4% of the resident population would need
to use modafinil daily before unmetabolized modafinil exceeded one part per
billion in the effluent of residential sewers.
I make this request as a citizen without any
affiliation with, or financial interest in, the makers of modafinil, or any
other conflict of interest defined or described in 45 CFR 73.735 and 45 CFR 73a.
The patent for modafinil expires on March 31, 2006, so this is the appropriate
time to make this request. My motivation in making this request is limited to my
desire for the personal and societal advantage of unrestricted access to the
apparently safe, effective, and beneficial effects of modafinil.
I certify that, to the best of my knowledge and
belief, this petition includes all information and views on which the petition
relies, and that it includes representative data and information known to the
petitioner which are unfavorable to the petition. I declare under penalty of
perjury that the forgoing is true and correct.
Sincerely,
/signed/
James
Salsman
[address]
[telephone]
Koria's Day
The most useful portion of the day was absorbed with work – fiddling with HTML and Javascript, in addition to beating on a Linux system that was thrust upon me. Rather than whine about the work day, I will talk about the parts of the day that were actually pleasant.
I took a little drive in the pursuit of lunch and to break up the day. The trip was pleasant and ended up at my favorite destination – Chipotle.
This is the sign outside of the restaurant. As usual, the fare was a fajita burrito with carnitas (free-range pork), chili corn salsa, lettuce, cheese and a big glob of guacamole. I should probably try something different on occasion, but I have found the pork to be my favorite of the meat offerings. On this particular occasion, the iced tea was not as fresh as usual and required a little bit of lemon to offset the bitterness.
As usual, my Chipotle lunch was highly satisfying.
I took the opportunity to snap a picture of Veronica’s dashboard on the way. At a stoplight, I clicked this . If you’ve never seen the dash of a Civic Hybrid, here is a first glimpse for you. The indicators on the right show that the assist battery is about fully charged, it is neither charging nor discharging, the tank is about 2/3 full and the engine temperature is normal. If you have seen such before and are familiar, please note that the auto-stop light is on – I took this shot at a stoplight after the engine cut off, thank you, so I’ll accept no criticism for not having both hands on the wheel while driving.
Someone was waiting for me when I arrived home in the evening… He was in the back yard next to a garden hose I had neglected to properly store after using it. This is the infamous fat bunny about whom I have talked in my journals. Unfortunately, the flash from the camera made his eyes bright red, even with redeye reduction. He is actually the larger of two rabbits that frequent my yard. The other is more gray as opposed to brown with black streaks, as this little fellow appears. I thought there were three, but I was mistaken.
While outside with my fat bunny, I took a few minutes to enjoy some of the sights in the yard.
Just outside the back door there is an enormous bush that blooms every summer, giving me large, softball-sized purple blooms of flowers. I haven’t a clue what kind of bush this is, but I am glad it is there. It was already there when I purchased the house. Interestingly, the previous owner said that the bush never bloomed. I discovered the secret – he would trim away the dead stalks, and I would not. It turns out that the dead stalks may not be as dead as one would suspect. As the previous owner and I became friends after the purchase, I called him to gloat after the first blooms appeared. He was a bit annoyed that it had not bloomed for him but that it showed favor to me instead. This is one plant that thrives on neglect.
More interesting than the flowers to me, however, are the leaves of the bush. They are very large, several inches across in width, and are teardrop-shaped. Where they are most fascinating is in the texture. They feel like they have been finely waxed or are made of rubber. Even more fascinating is the fact that few of the leaves are blemished or torn. In this picture, the small leaf in the center is slightly marred, but it was very much the exception instead of the rule.
Also in the yard is a strange tree that looks like this all of the time. It somewhat resembles a cross between a birch tree and a weeping willow, with the bark peeling off in papery layers and the branches hanging low in long, thin fingers.
Ok, enough about the yard.
I spent my evening plugged into my music, both in a listening capacity and in a composing role. Above is a graphical snap of a project on which I am working. Thus far I have about 2 minutes of work done on it, but I am displeased with a portion of it. I sent a rough of it to someone that shares a similar taste in music with me, and he offered some good suggestions. When it is done I will make it available through some mechanism, although I’ve not decided how to address that. I’ve not finished it yet so I cannot get too concerned about it at the moment. The overall theme is that of a cleansing rain. I have the ambient backdrop, the beat and much of the keyboarding done. This one represents a combination of prerecorded loops and my own keyboarding work.
When I grew weary of working on music and had no desire to write, I concentrated instead on just listening and relaxing. I decided to grab a screen shot. I happened to be listening to Glad’s rendition of “Be Thou My Vision” when I took the screenshot.
No, I am not using the most current Windows Media Player. Versions 8 and above introduced a latency problem when running an endless loop on a track, and have no tolerance for that. So, this is version 7. I’m not running Windows XP either, I am using Windows 2000. It works, and I am not willing to pay for another Windows license after paying for this one.
I spent some time in my private journal after I finally developed a desire to write.
That, in a nutshell, was how my day was spent.
~Oculus Habent
~Otter
Embarrassingly, I rushed in to an 8am teleconference and forgot about A Day In My Life Day, or whatever this is called. So nothing of me crawling out of bed, having toast and tea for breakfast, biking to work, teleconferencing, doing other work, eating lunch, riding home…
We pick up the day as I split early, and run home to go camping. I remember the activity and grab the rarely-used digital camera to get a few representative pictures -- my lunch, and my garden. (Readers of my Slashdot posts will recognize me as the guy who loves em-dashes – I use them liberally offline, as well.)
We went off to Greenfield State Park to go camping. Getting there took full concentration and there wasn’t much to photograph in Nashua, anyway. Once on site, we put up the tent and I remembered to take some more pictures -- some mushrooms and blueberries near the campsite,
a pond nearby (Hogback Pond, or something like that)
and the car interior with the omnipresent maps needed for Boston life, for finding your way on trips and for finding your way home from three blocks away.
And then it got dark and, anyway, I had filled the tiny CF card that came with my camera! (I had to delete a murky picture of a frog to get the mushrooms in.) Like I said, I’m not a big digital camera buff. Actually, given the amount of time I spend on a tech-obsessed site, I’m not much of a tech buff in general. It’s very rare that I have even a single electronic device on my person.
~peacefinder
I finished Half-Blood Prince early this morning. (And am now over-caffinated in a futile attempt to compensate for lack of sleep.) Good read. Kinda wishing this series was not an exception to my "never start a series that isn't finished or by a dead author" rule, because I want to read the next one. Now. I'm looking forward to a nice spoiler-filled discussion on it. Anyone got a link to such? (This JE is not the place for spoilers, please.)
Last week I was on a road-trip vacation to Southern and Southeastern Oregon with the fiancee and kids.
We went first to Crater Lake, Oregon's only National Park. Photos do not do justice to this water-filled caldera, although some come close. The astounding blue clarity of the lake just doesn't seem to come through in photography.
Next we travelled briefly to Klamath Falls to pick up some things we had forgotten, then East via Silver Lake, Christmas Valley, and Wagontire. (Pop. 0 or 2, depending on who you ask.) It's mightily empty country between Christmas Valley and Wagontire, but it does have some odd bits. On we went, past the twin cities of Hines and Burns, to our cabin at Crystal Crane Hot Springs.
On July 15, SMITE day, we ascended Steens Mountain. Steens is a 30 mile long, one mile high fault-block mountain gently sloping on the west side, and falling off steeply on the east. This means an easy drive from elev. 4500' Frenchglen to the elev. 9600' top; from the top, one has a view over the Alvord Desert, one vertical mile below. The view from the top of a mile-high dropoff is... ummm... impressive. (None of these photos are mine; mine will hopefully be off to BWJones soon for inclusion in SMITE.)
There also are some amazing glacier-carved gorges on the mountain, including Kiger Gorge. (For which some wild mustangs are named. Some of these are a bit famous.) The scale of this view is hard to grasp, so for reference those are full-size trees at the bottom, probably aspens.
One thousand miles, two kids, three carsickness episodes, four hundred digital photos (maybe five of which will be any good), six days. It was a good vacation.
Last but not least: Good luck at the interview, Sam, and all else besides.
~Railgunner
RailGunner - 7/15/2005
A Day in the Life Of.... Part of the Slashdot Moment In Time Project.
I would like to write about how this day started like any other, but I can't – it
didn't. I forgot to set my alarm clock this morning, so instead of waking up to the
alleged “wacky hijinks and shenanigans” of the Bo and Jim show on 92.5 KZPS
FM, which is usually annoying enough to make me want to get up and turn that
lame crap off, I woke up to 14 pounds of pressure distributed to four discrete
points on my chest and stomach and an ear splitting
“rrrrrrrrrreeeeooooooowwwwwww” right in my face.
The cat was hungry, and I had apparently slept long enough. So, I did what any
guy who's been married for seven years would do – ignored the cat just long
enough for my wife's alarm clock to go off, which made the cat leap off me, on to
her, waking her up and getting her up so that she could feed the cat.
Good kitty.
I finally staggered out of bed about 7:30AM, and took a shower. I was a little bit
sore from my softball game last night – another loss, unfortunately, but I played
well, ending up 2-4 for the night with a couple of assists: threw a runner out
trying to stretch a single to right-center into a double, and threw a guy out who
tried to score on a shallow fly out. Of course, all that means is that the team that
beat us could have beat us by a much larger margin if they didn't run themselves
out of a big inning.
So I finally get in the shower, rub my eyes, and look down and see a small pink
lizard crawl out from the shower drain, and run behind my shampoo bottle.
Seems this baby lizard had somehow fallen in to the stand pipe in the garage
(where the washing machine is – it's not sealed at all), and managed to run
through about 15 feet of drain line to escape into the shower.
You know, when you've just woken up, and you're still tired, and still sore, that's
the last thing you want to see is something crawl out your drain line. So, I took
the shower head off the hook, and started spraying the lizard, seeing if I could
coax him back into the drain line. It wasn't working, so I rotated the head into
the shower massage mode, trying to get more water pressure to rinse the thing
down the drain – it didn't work, I think I drowned it, as it died. It actually got
pretty lucky in that regard, had the lizard escaped the shower, one of nature's
best hunters would have caught it and made it a snack, as the cat has done it
before.
So, still dripping wet, I leave the shower, grab a wad of toilet paper, grab the
lizard corpse, and give it a burial at sea, so to speak. So I get back into the
shower, and now I'm REALLY awake as I forget that flushing the toilet takes up all
the cold water and getting scalded really gets your attention in the morning.
15 minutes into the day, and I'm ready to just go back to bed and say “screw it”.
So I finish my shower, dry off, get dressed, and head to work. Since it's a Friday,
and therefore a casual day, I get to wear a T-Shirt instead of the usual stupid
polo shirt. So, I grab a Detroit Tigers shirt, pull my hair back into a pony tail, kiss
my wife goodbye, pack up a change of clothes for my workout, and head to work.
As a joke, I thought about going into so much detail about the drive to work that
I'd get compared to Tolkien, but I figured that would be far too cruel to do to
anybody who's still bothering to read this. I'll count that as my good deed for the
day, because 10 pages of detailed descriptions of trees, businesses, potholes,
plus the delicate sounds of my turn signal – comedy gold, right there.
So I got to work on time, checked Slashdot quick while my development
computer booted up, grabbed a Pop-Tart, and started my work day.
Yes, it really takes that long for my development computer to boot up. It's not
that the machine is slow, it's that the IT department insists on running all this
synchronization crap at boot time, and we are required to shut our PC's down at
the end of the day. So, it takes / wastes 15 minutes of my time to boot up my
development machine every morning. My test machine? On a different network,
boots up in 30 seconds.
There's 500 employees here, and 15 minutes is a quarter of an hour. So every
work day, the company wastes 125 hours of productive time waiting on our damn
machines to boot to a desktop. Hooray for the IT department – crack staff of
MCSE's – oh wait, I meant crack-head staff of MCSE's – which is exactly what I
think of anyone dumb enough to put their entire career and employability into the
hands of a single company. Here's a question – what if Microsoft goes out of
business? What if China invades Taiwan, the US intervenes, and Redmond gets
nuked by missile technology given to the Chinese by that jack-ass Bill Clinton?
Then what? I'll be fine – I can program for any platform, but an MCSE? They're
screwed.
So my development machine finally comes up, and I start on the day's work:
Commenting Code! Usually, we use interns to do menial tasks like this, but in this
case, it's me – a Senior Software Engineer. Why? Because I'm being punished for
asking to be moved off this project, because this project is seemingly run by
chimpanzees (which explains the feces on the walls). Here's what I went through:
Two years ago, Pointy Haired Bosses decide they want a “Web Based GUI” for this
project. So, despite me wanting to base this GUI off of Mozilla and Apache, they
decide they want a C++ container hosting Internet Explorer using HTML pages for
navigation and Java Applets for useful screens – but there's no webserver, so I
have to roll my own and we have to distribute about 200 .class files, as they
won't even let me use a .jar file. Fools.
I wanted to embed Mozilla for one simple reason: Open Source. If we hit a
showstopper with Internet Exploder, there's nothing I can do about it. With
Mozilla, since I have the source code, I'd have a fighting chance to find and fix
the problem. But, I lost that argument to morons who only want Microsoft and
Intel (despite our internal benchmarks showing how superior an AMD Opteron is).
Enter another Senior Engineer, I'll call him “Assclown”, who honestly has no
business being a Senior Level Engineer – he wanted to use .NET, for whatever
reason, and then for the next two years has thrown a temper tantrum about it,
complaining about the JVM, etc, and trying to assassinate my career.
It started when we got the pre-production PC's. Our copy of Norton Ghost
wouldn't recognize SATA drives – so Ghost was totally useless. I ask one of the
Managers (a good one) if we should see if there's an open source alternative that
works – he says yes, I promptly demo using a Knoppix boot disk to backup and
restore disk images using partimage and sfdisk, and then learn how to re-master
a Knoppix disk to make the process absolutely painless for the user. Management
is impressed – especially since it's FREE. Plus, it also boots from a USB 2.0 CD-
ROM drive painlessly.
Well, to Assclown, this is totally unacceptable. He then wastes 3 days trying to
get Ghost to sort of work, and it was hilarious the amount of hoops he had to
jump through, involving special partitions (so what happens with a brand new,
out of the box disk, Assclown?) and DOS 6.2, and a few other absurdities. And it
still doesn't boot from USB 2.0 – he has to drop it to USB 1.1. Assclown ends up
throwing a temper tantrum, and the clueless, but amiable, putz running this
project caves to his demands. To this day. Ghost still doesn't work for this
project, but, the whiny little bitch got his way. He couldn't drop it, though, and
decides to start badmouthing me, and eventually lies to a different manager and
claims that to use Knoppix to restore an image, you had to be a Unix
programmer. (The remastered disk had a special knoppix.sh – it asks the user if
they want to re-image the disk, and it's a yes or no answer – that's it – I had
scripted everything else.) Seriously, this guy really is that big of a weasel.
So back in December of this year, I fixed a major memory leak. This was pretty
severe, and would crash the GUI eventually. So, I check in the Fix in December.
Assclown then complains about GUI stability from December to April, and points
out the Customer is pretty upset, twice a week, every week, and like a broken
record I explain twice a week, every week, that the problem has been fixed.. This
went on until April. I fixed it in December. I go to my supervisor, and I do this: I
point out the bug fix in the SourceSafe history, and pull every meeting agenda
(GUI Issue was always a prominent topic) an then I point out that he's in charge
of getting this fix to the customer, and that he's not doing his job, instead
deciding to criticize me doing mine, while he intentionally sits on my fix. I was
honestly ready to just quit this job at that point and go back to contracting –
though I decided I'd fire all my guns, and if they fired me, so be it. The satisfying
irony of it, I used his own documentation to hang him, and pointed out that once
my fix finally made it to the customer site, their problems went away.
Supervisor, and Manager, see things my way – and honor my request to get
moved off that project. I get a GLOWING performance review, and a nice pay
raise for my trouble. Assclown sill works here, but gets put on probation (I think
they should just fire his incompetent ass.).
Even funnier – we have an employee suggestion program – and in a moment
where I was extremely pissed off I submitted my idea of using Knoppix to image
drives instead of Ghost.... and got a $25 gift card for my trouble. Now THAT's
funny.
So, since I asked to be moved to a new project, the chimpanzee's on the old
project whine and cry to my manager about the commenting still needing to be
done. They whine so much, that even though we usually bring in interns to do
this, I end up having to do it. It's to punish me, since why would anyone ever
want off their poorly run, mismanaged project when there's an Assclown going
out of his way to make me look bad? In fact, it's just their way of flinging poo at
me.
The better question is – why did I put up with it for so long before finally fighting
back?
So, given that background information, I end up writing JavaDoc comments for
the next 4 hours. A lot of this:
/**
* keyPressed
* @see KeyListener
*/
Because if you're too lazy or stupid to go read the documentation that Sun
provides with the JDK to learn about what a KeyListener interface is supposed to
do (handles keyboard events!), then you're not going to be effective when writing
code for this system, and I can't help you.
Since this task is menial (all 4 damn hours of it) and it doesn't require my full
attention, I'm able to listen to some music during this interval so I ended up
listening to the following CD's:
Fozzy: All That Remains
Pillar: Fireproof
Pillar: Where Do We Go From Here
MEGADETH: The System Has Failed
... which takes me in to lunchtime. I head down to a Wendy's, go through the
drive-through, and spend my lunch wolfing down a 1⁄2 pound double with cheese,
an order of fries, and a Dr. Pepper while reading Slashdot journal entries. Ellem
has a odd little JE about flirting with a professor in college, where he even admits
to looking down her shirt (like any straight guy wouldn't have?). Very well written
on his part – I laughed, I cried, I puked on my keyboard. Just kidding about that
last part – no puke, and the part about laughing and crying. Though I meant it
when I said it was well written.
And here's a helpful hint to the folks at Wendy's: When the burger is so greasy,
that it leaks through the foil and soaks through the bag, I'm going to need more
than one napkin, mmkay? It's also helpful if the dude in the drive through has at
least a function command of the English language. I don't speak Spanish, and I'm
not learning Spanish just to buy your product. Not the most healthful lunch (I
didn't finish it anyways, quality was pretty poor today), but it's Friday, and I'm
allowed to splurge a bit. I'm 6'1”, 210 pounds, and able to bench press 235
pounds (free weight) and hit a softball over 300 feet (which is what the fences
are) – I'm definitely not in bad shape.
I then contributed my JE for the day... note that I was only being half-serious –
though I was intentionally trying to be funny. Hope it goes over well!
Here's an idea I have for a Reality Show: "The Duel". Instead of going on Judge Wapner or Mills Lane
or Judge Judy or whatever, people would be allowed to challenge each other to a duel - wherein these
people could settle their differences in a boxing ring. It'd be one part Judge Judy, a splash of Jerry
Springer, a hint of Celebrity Boxing, and large quantities of Saturday Night at the Trailer Park.
It'll be ratings GOLD, I tell ya. And over-do it on the production side - let these people choose their
own music, let them have WWE-style entrances complete with pre-match interviews, and post match
interviews with the winner and the loser, and then let them slug it out. In fact, instead of boxing - make
it kick boxing, with tackling takedowns worth more points than landing a punch or a kick. Troll any
trailer park, and you'll have no trouble finding um... "talent" for the show. (And look how popular that
homeless boxing thing was)
For sweeps week - you invite celebrities: Not the stupid matchups of Celebrity boxing like Screech vs.
Horshack or Chyna vs. Joey Buttafouco - no, get real feuds: Axl Rose vs. Vince Neil. Sammy Hagar vs.
David Lee Roth vs. Eddie Van Halen in a Triangle Match (not like they're busy otherwise!). Bret
Michaels vs. Tommy Lee in the "I gave Pam Hepatitis First" match. Jennifer Aniston vs. Angelina
Jolie. Bruce Willis vs. Ashton Kutcher in a girly slap fight match. Any celebrity vs. their own personal
stalkerazzi...
Plus, there's an Assclown here at work that I'd love to challenge to this - in a "Loser Leaves Town"
match. But for more on that, you'll have to read my entry in the "SMITE" project (Slashdot Moment In
TimE).
In fact, if Fox wants this idea, and wants to start sending me royalty checks, that's OK. If they want to
hire me to produce this show - that's cool too. Hell, if any local UHF channel (channel 33, I'm talking
to YOU) wants this, I'm still available. (After all, WB 33, it's not like anyone watches your lame ass
crap now, anyways!)
After lunch: MORE COMMENTING... I mean, I'm so ecstatic about this prospect I
can't hardly contain myself. At least I got to listen to some more CD's:
Ozzy Osbourne: Diary of a Madman
Stryper: Seven Weeks, Live in America 2003
Scorpions: Deadly Sting, The Mercury Years (2 CDs!)
I did have a group meeting at 1:30, it only broke the monotony for 20 minutes
though. At least listening to other people give their weekly status was slightly less
painful than cross-referencing overloaded methods so that the moron customer
feels satisfied that we commented the code enough.
And with that, another work week ends, and the weekend finally begins.
Again, I've resisted the urge to go into a Tolkien style description of the drive
from work to my father-in-law's house where I work out. Consider yourself
fortunate, that is, if you're even reading this far. Maybe I should title this “The
Cure for Insomnia”, or “Who really gives a shit about what I do in a day,
anyways?”. I suspect that the latter is slightly more true, even if I do like the idea
of a bunch of Slashdotters writing about a typical day.
Now I know what you're thinking – a dashingly good looking, 29 year old Sr.
Software Engineer with long, blond hair that his female friends are insanely
jealous of, my Friday nights must be WILD, right? Tales of sweat, grunting, and
breasts, right?
If you're wanting to read wild tales of sex and sin, go read TechnoLust's stuff. I've
been married too long. Though my night did involve sweating, grunting, and
breasts! Now that I have (regained?) your attention.... I will describe my evening
for everyone reading this. Yeah, both of you.
My Friday Night starts off with me getting all hot and sweaty, though. I change
into my athletic shorts and my tank top, put on my weightlifting belt and gloves,
and get to work. I do 10 reps on the bench press at 165 pounds, 10 reps of
butterfly lifts at 25 pounds in each hand, 15 shoulder shrugs with 45 pounds in
each hand, 15 upright row lifts with 95 pounds (harder than it sounds), and 10
triceps pulls with 95 pounds, though it's on a pulley system so it's not really 95
pounds. Also harder than it sounds. I do all this two more times, and then feel
like my arms are going to fall off.
Just for kicks, I try to reach a new max bench press – with my father-in-law
spotting, I get my previous max bench, 235 pounds, up with a lot of trouble (hey,
I'm tired.. I just did 30 total reps at 165... and I only weigh 210) but it goes up,
and I'm able to rest it on the bench OK. I get some Gatorade, put 5 pound plates
on each side, and attempt to set a new personal max. I get it off the support OK,
bring it down to my chest, still under control, and push. I get it about 8 inches off
my chest, and my arms lock – I'm done – I can't push it any farther, grunting
doesn't help. It's not coming back down, but it's not going back up either. I nod
when my father-in-law asks if I need help, and he assists me in getting it back up
and on the rack. I'll try again in 2 weeks, I just increased to 165 on my bench
this week (and went from 20 pounds to 25 on the butterfly lifts) so I need some
time to get used to that weight level.
All done with my workout, we lock up the building (my father-in-law built a
workshop / weight room on his property and I drive home. I finally get home
about 7PM, eat the dinner that my wife has prepared, take a quick shower to
wash off the sweat still pouring off my face – and we go out.
Here comes the exciting part: I mean, after all, what could two attractive people
in their twenties on a Friday night in a major area like the Dallas-Fort Worth
Metroplex? Answer: Grocery Shopping at Wal-Mart! I know, I bet you can't stand
the excitement! And we even bought 2 12 packs of Pepsi! And some Propel
Fitness Water! And some frozen chicken breasts! Hey! I covered it! My promise of
sweating, grunting, and breasts! At least when we go shopping at Wal-Mart, I can
entertain my wife by making wisecracks about some of the rednecks that are
there – and then there's the women who go shopping in their absolute best
clothing (I guess Wal-Mart is a happening place or something), and even some
desperate skanks wearing next to nothing who have got to be trolling for a one
night stand of beer, broken condoms, unwanted pregnancies, and venereal
disease. I can hear it now: “Hey baby, want to see my double wide? I park it in
my daddy's back yard. I even gots me a propane connection, and my shitter
works real good.”
We came home with a trunk full of food, drink, toiletries, and miscellaneous
supplies, and put them up. I then spent about an hour typing up this document in
OpenOffice. Now I'm going to spell check it, save it, export it to PDF so I can
email it in, spend some time playing Unreal Tournament 2004 on-line, then I'm
going to bed. If you made it reading this far, you're probably ready to fall asleep,
too, so I won't keep you from your rest, relaxation, and recovery.
~SiliconJesus
~TechnoLust
My day started out pretty standard, except I didn't sleep well last night. I woke up and hit the snooze button several times and then showered and went to work. I had several useless meetings and read slashdot and chatted with Koria on IM for a bit. My grandmother called me about 2:30pm and asked if I wanted to come for dinner.
She was cooking chicken and dumplings and dressing and green beans.
I left work about 15 minutes late and went to her house. My cousin was there and she always bugs me and steals my sunglasses because she's the only girl other than my sister and my sister and I are over a decade older than the other grandchildren.
I was tired since I didn't sleep well so I took a nap.
After that I came home and went to have a drink with LeAnne and see Chris at work.
Kim waited on us, and I told her to call me when she got off and she could meet us for drinks. Then I went to have a drink with Nicole and we met up with some other friends.
I saw one of the hostess girls that I haven't seen in forever, ashlee, and we caught up on recent events.
After that I went up to gordo's and met up with Kim and LeAnne's cousin Matt.
Nicole came over after work and hung out for a while and then she fell asleep on the couch.
That's all folks.
Posted: Fri - August 19, 2005 at 01:43 PM
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