You Drink, You Drive, You Lose

Here in New Mexico, DWI continues to be a serious problem.



Posted by Hello

Attempting to operate any sort of wheeled vehicle while under the influence of alcohol may have distastrous results, as seen here. This lawn-tractor-sprinkler didn't stand a chance. Note the sprinkler's valiant attempts to continue watering the lawn even minutes after the accident took place.

A Day to Remember

There are some days that you just have to look back and say, "Wow, today was a good day."
Today, I went to work at the normal time (around 7:30 am) but left early, around 1 pm, since I was kinda tired and unmotivated. So I met the missus for lunch at Costco and got a fresh-out-of-the-conveyered-oven slice of pepperoni pizza. Then I went home and played with my dogs for a while, and watered the grass and Christmas tree (we bought live this year and finally planted it a month ago). Then I took a nap with the missus. Then I put on my garage clothes and worked on the Cougar for about two and a half hours, finally getting the rear axle separated from the leaf springs. Then, after feeding the dogs (at about 5:30), we got dinner (again, 'zza at Costco since it's on the way) and went to REI and got a new climbing harness for the missus, then hit Stone Age until they closed (at 10 pm). On the way home we hit Hastings for A New Hope on DVD (rental), and now I'm gonna have some beer.

So, let's recap: 'zza for lunch and dinner, a short day of work, a nap, some beer, Star Wars, productive work on the car, play with dogs, and 3 hours of rock climbing.

I've had worse days!

Five Thousand Meters

Ron's right; it does seem bigger when it's spelled out.

5k
Five thousand meters
22:56
Twenty-two minutes and fifty-six seconds.
Not bad for not preparing in any way, running a competitive distance for the first time since November '95. That's a pace of about 7:23 per mile; way down from my high school worst (21:03), but over a half-minute lower than my pre-race e.t. goal of 24 minutes.

I'm really glad I didn't drive straight from the race up to Santa Fe for 9 innings as catcher... I probably would have died getting out of bed this morning.

In other news, I received three hundred forty dollars worth of new parts for the Cougar today. Actually, $270 + $70 shipping (!); it's expensive to ship steel. I got new front coil springs and rear leaf springs, and all associated hardware. I'll be ordering the rest of the front-end crap this week, hopefully, and the shock/sway-bar kit too. And then it's thrash time.


6"
Nine inches.
See? Works every time.

Who Says Software is For Geeks

Diggity recently posted a link to Geek2Geek, an online dating service for Geeks.

Well, I just spent the last 1/2 hour or so teaching my wife a little bit of HTML so that she can tweak her blog a little bit. Just after she showered. She's still naked, sitting at her computer. She keeps telling me to go take a shower. Only, she's still naked, sitting at her computer playing games. And she expects me to leave the room. She doesn't know me very well.

Those Were The Best Days of My Life

So, learning to Blog and learning about the free tools available has taken some time out of my schedule.

Hello has some pretty easy-to-use, free photo sharing and archiving, so then I started surfing through the pictures that I have on this computer (MAN they add up once you get a digital camera!).

This is one of my favorite pictures of "us", taken film-style and scanned with an old Kodak PhotoSmart (or something like that) photo scanner, hence the scanner lines.

The picture was taken back on Maui during that wonderful summer of '98 at the playground of Ke'opu'olani Park.

See how she laughs? It intoxicates me still today.



Posted by Hello

You've Just Been Erased

This device used to accelerate small metal plates to 4 times escape velocity, vaporizing the material that "catches" the plate 5mm later, will be used to study the interior of gas giant planets and stars.

Uh huh.

It accelerates an 850 micron-thick aluminum plate at 1010*g.

Gee, what to do with this, what to do, what to do....

See this Red Faction 2 website, click weapons in the upper right hand corner, and choose "CMRD-32 Magnetic Rail Driver" (the 8th one down). I definitely need one of these to... uh... protect my self and my property.

From Dr. Evil's HQ in Seattle...

I officially hate Starbucks.

Why?

8:10 a.m.
Mrs. Freak: [getting dressed for school] I'm gonna get some Starbucks on my way to school; I'm really tired.
Mr. Freak: Ok.
Mrs. Freak: Nah, I don't have time, I'm already running late. I have to be on the road by 8:20 to get to class on time.
Mr. Freak: [about to walk out the door] How about this: I'll run to Starbucks and order for us both, and you can just drive by and grab your drink. You won't have to wait for the order. What do you want?
Mrs. Freak: Thanks Honey, that's sweet. I'll have a Soy Latte. The middle size.

8:20 a.m.
Mr. Freak: [to Starbucks barrista] Thank you!
Mr. Freak carefully balances his briefcase, keys, Mrs. Freak's Soy Latte, and his own Mocha Frappuccino.
As he walks through the door, the cellular phone in his pocket begins to pick out the first few bars of the Super Mario Bros. theme. Mr. Freak carefully sets the drinks on an outdoor table and fumbles for the phone.
Mr. Freak: [into the phone] What's up Honey?
Mrs. Freak: Um, which Starbucks did you go to?
Mr. Freak: [with pain, knowing that she's already at the one on Montano -- on her way to school -- rather than on her way to the one by Smith's -- on his way to work] The one by Smith's.
Mrs. Freak: Why would you go to that one?!?!?!




Stupid Starbucks.

Mikey's All Grows Up

Ronnie hit the nail on the head. Winnie was the incarnation of the unattainable girl-next-door.

Maybe this is weird, but when Kevin Arnold had his first kiss, so did I (of course, I didn't really until I was 16, and Wonder Years was long off the air). And Winnie was always the unattainable one.

But I did attain my unattainable girl next door!

Starting a Blog

When you start a Blog, it is important to set the tone carefully. The quality, topic, and voice of the first post is paramount! Much like the "hook" of a "5-paragraph-thesis", the first blog entry must intrigue the visitor to the site enough to warrant a return visit...

Of course, as the Blog matures, the first post will no longer be visible; thus each post must be of quality high enough to at least maintain the flow of visitors.

So I don't know why I feel so much pressure to feature something earth-shattering in my first post. What was the First Thesis nailed to the door in Wittenburg?

In fact, you can find that here.

But most of you are probably not here to discuss 16th century dogmatic shakeups, so for now, let's just have some fun! I've got some links to the blogs of my friends (my wife, Ronnie, and Grant) as well as some other stuff that's important to me. So stick around, and check back once in a while, and certainly comment on my posts! It's the only way that I know you've been here!


Hopefully, I've set the proper tone: I'm usually exceptionally verbose though rarely insightful; tangential train-of-thought departures run rampant; and nearly any topic could be discussed here on any given day.