More Politics and More Hockey

So the DNC rules committee decided that the voters in Florida and Michigan are worth half a vote. I am reminded of a Monty Python skit about pet licenses and "Eric the Half a Bee." This halving of the delegate was to punish the states for holding their primaries earlier than Feb. 5th. Enter the New Hampshire question. Although NH by state law must have the first primary, they moved their primary to an earlier date, but suffered no penalty. Did NH violate DNC rules by moving their primary to an earlier date? If so, why not penalize them as well? Also what does the penalty prove?

Game 4 ended Det 2, Pens 1. Det leads series 3-1. %$##@!#$!

Word of The Day

Yardarm
either end of the yard of a square-rigged ship.

Well, since the sun is over the yardarm, I guess it is O.K. to have a beer.

I might even make it a yard of beer to go with the theme.

GO PENS!

GO PENS. Again, I like the Red Wings, but I like the Penguins more. It would also appear that I love yelling at the TV.

Drunk Amateur Astronomers With Machetes

The following is true and the names have not been changed to protect anybody.

"Don't worry about it, Becky. It's just something you do when you're drunk." Nick said as he walked out of the house carrying a machete.
How the house was able to carry a machete, I'll never know. But seriously, we needed the machete to "girdle" a eucalyptus tree in order to bring the rapidly disappearing moon back into view. Anyway, even although the tree survived, and astronomers called it an eclipse, you can thank Nick, Greg, and myself for saving the moon.

The Sudden Realization of the Intuitively Obvious

Star and Bear have been driving me crazy for half the day. I finally realized they needed their walk -- DUH!

I took time to remember those who hsve served today, did you?

I'd better start behaving.

My wife looked out the window this morning at the snow, sleet and rain and complained that she wanted to sit outside in the lawn chair. I told her she still could. The look I recived told me that if I were to continue that line of thought, she would turn me into something that sounds like "unix", but starts with the letter E, and ends with the letter H.

It's not rain, it's not snow, it's SNAIN

Yep, snain. And don't think I mean sleet, because it's really snain. Cooler temperature, higher humidity, but still mild enough for that last mile or so bike ride to work. I find this double-digit R.H. business refreshing. Did I mention a lack of morning traffic on campus, or that it is Friday, or that it is pay day, or that it is a three day weekend. Kind of has the makings of a good day.

If It Is Late May, It Must Be Time For Snow.

If I had not grown up in Colorado I would think the weather in Flagstaff is weird. Two days ago we had a record high temperature (85), and now we are having record low highs (high 40's.) Snow is also in the forcast; somewhere between 2 to 12 inches. More at higher elevations. Hmmmmm 2 to 12 inches -- that certainly narrows it down. I find this normal for spring and even enjoy the fluctuation. I do, however, think of the fools who packed their winter gear away. They know better, or at least should. As I mentioned in an earlier blog -- NEVER BEFORE JUNE!

Because I Still Have A Turntable...

As I strolled past the "Records" office at the university today, I successfully fought the urge to ask the receptionist for "Led Zeppelin IV." I figured she had probably heard that joke many times.

Why Materials Managers Should Not Write Grammar Textbooks

Dialogue example #1:

"It is not allowable to charge alcohol to federal grants under any circumstances." said the man from the Comptroller's Office.
The crowd was in agreement until the smart aleck stockroom manager interjected "Unless it is used as a chemical." Snickers and smiles of support for the chemist filled the room as the first man concurred with a chuckle of his own.

Heat Wave

I am definately not built for heat. We broke 80 today and it nearly felt brutal (It used to nearly feel terrible, but terrible threatened a law suit and the heat backed off) especially in the sun. Fortunately there was some cloud cover and it became tolerable. I know the rest of the planet laughs at 80, but here in Flag, everyone gets snippy when it gets this warm. When it breaks 90, we become downright hostile. I hope this summer has very few days over 85, but it does not look promising.
In other news, a good friend of mine left for a four week trip to China. She is bound to have a blast. It will also give the planets in her universe on this side of the planet time to realign - something that is long overdue. With any luck, when she returns, the astronomical bodies will be where they should.

Bad joke warning #2

Because I missed yesterday's blog, todays is an extra special bad joke. So without further ado:
It seems a big moron and a little moron went rock climbing. The big one fell off a ledge while the little one remained safe. I suppose it was because he was a little more on.

Word for the day

The word for the day is the foreign word "FARANG"

Despite my plans to make stir-fry for tonight's dinner, we wound up having farang food. How uninteresting!

How to use a day off.

Today the building where I work is shut down for repairs/maintenance so I have the day off. Apparently the epoxy they are using on the floors is so nasty the building needs to be closed while the substance is applied and cures. It will be closed tomorrow too. Anyway, I still was up and about before 5:30. I had breakfast, put my daughter on the school bus, went grocery shopping, gassed up the truck, did the Rachael Ray clean the produce as soon as you get home thing, de-pooped the back yard, and sorted three weeks of non-vital mail all before noon. Why the hell 90% of stuff in the important mail envelopes is junk, I will never know. I suspect banks and insurance companies are heavily invested in the paper industry. The afternoon has been far less productive, but at least the back yard poop deposition machines got a walk. I plan on cooking ahead for the coming week tomorrow.

Viva Polygamy

We had a pot-luck "breakfast" for the staff of the College of Engineering and Natural Sciences (plus Forest-tree) this morning. I soon noticed that the ratio of women to men was around 5 to 1; at one point it was over 10 to one prompting one of the other men there to comment that he felt he was in "that polygamist cult in Texas."

ALWAYS WAIT UNTIL JUNE

It must be all because my wife planted tomatoes and flowers Sunday afternoon. Okay, okay, it was around 70 degrees then, but NEVER plant in Flagstaff before Memorial Day. Sure enough, yesterday the news folks said to expect the wind to bring in rain and maybe an inch of snow. At 6:00 this morning we had at least 4" of wet heavy snow on our deck and it was still coming down at an impressive rate. The roads were covered with the easily navigable layer of white slush, but as we got closer to town the layer got thinner and eventually disappeared from the roads. By late morning the precip had ended and started to melt off the grass - a typical Flag spring event. We had covered the plants, but only time will tell if they make it. With the recent snow and a clear night in store, the temp may drop too low for the plant's survival.

It must be spring in Flag.

Whether it is of the head variety or the cross variety, when one is riding a bicycle, wind BLOWS.

Stuck in the Middle

The Democrats nomination process is starting to begin to start to wind down. The mud slinging continues, but with less passion, and smaller dirt clods with less manure. I expect that in three weeks or so the factions will coalesce and start to make nice, just in time for the real mud bowl. I hate to admit that as the process has gone on, I have paid less and less attention to the whole pagent. Perhaps because I am neither a Democrat, nor a Republican and have no voice until the general election. Of course I made this choice, or maybe it is because I felt that the Democrats had little room for a white, heterosexual, middle class, white collar, male and left that party. On the other hand, the Republicans are reluctant to make room for those who refuse to cram one specific religious philosophy down the throat of the populace.

Our Talking dog.

Bear hates when I use the computer and will rest her head on my lap and start "talking" anytime I start surfing or blogging. She doesn't bark when I do this but uses a series of varying pitch non growl growls. She will keep it up until I stop. She only does this when I use the laptop; the desktop does not concern her as much. She has quite the vocabulary and seems proud of it. Star will just bring the tug-of-war rope to me and drop it on the keyboard.

Quantum Thai Lunch

It has been almost 4 hours since lunch and my belly is still happy. This is not to be confused with full, it is simply happy. You need to understand that I had Thai food for lunch, and the restaurant used bona-fide Thai Chilis in the dishes. Too often the Thai restaurants in Flagstaff use seranos, jalapenos, or similar which work, but fall short of the flavor needed for real Thai cuisine. I love good Thai food. The aroma of the herbs, spices, and fish sauce take me back to the crowded, vibrant, lively outdoor markets in MahaSarakham. There is an earthiness to the food that fills my soul with the vision of the sunset over a rice paddy. Throw in a wat and village with houses on stilts for good measure and my whole body slows down to contemplate serene nothingness. What shape is nothingness? Is it the same as a one dimentional box? What about the particle and it's vibrational energy? I bet Schrodinger was actually a Buddhist.

I Thought Tuesday was opposite day.

Our dog Star usually will play ball with Patty or myself, but not Kim. Our other dog, Bear, will refuse to play fetch. Tonight was very different. Kim was throwing the ball for Star who kept bringing it back to Kim despite my presence. Bear was out of character and insisted that I throw the other ball for her. This all worked fine until the identical balls hit eachother and bounced in opposite directions. Neither Star nor Bear could not figure out which ball was which and the whole game ended.
In other news, I'm still tired of the Dead Things, and anything to do with Dallas (Mavericks, Cowboys, Stars, etc.) disgusts me, and, and, and, I like both the Flyers and the Pens. This means for the first time in over a decade I am for the Eastern Conference (but the western most team of that.)

Word of the Day

Disencumber.

Please disencumber the funds to allow further expenditures.

I Want a Do-Over

The tip-off should have been my inability to stay awake as my wife was driving us to work this morning. Not even the 2Km bike ride to finish my trip to work woke me up. My brain had the computational ability of canned movie-theater nacho cheese the entire day. The pinacle of the day occured this afternoon as I was working on converting and uploading a breakage charges file into PeopleSquash. I continually got a message telling me there was an error with the date. All involved agreed that the date was correct, and in the right format. After an hour or so of analysis by myself and two others it was determined that the problem was in the student ID number and not the date. After manually adjusting the ID number for each of the charges, I finally got the file to upload. I then posted it with no further problems. I pulled off the posted charges report and noticed a major problem - I posted the charges for last semester (fall 2007). So I quicly uploaded and posted the charges for spring 2008 and proceeded to check the new charges for Fall 2007. They weren't there. So I checked the post for spring 2008. Yep - double charged. In other words I thought I made a mistake, but I was wrong. I had pulled off the wrong post report the first time. Twenty minutes and three phone calls later the second post was reversed and the students were charged the correct amount. Because I am perfect, I'm blaming PeopleSquash, and everyone will believe me.

Annoying TV Shows

I can not decide if The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, or any of the High School Musical crud is the most annoying thing on television. Anyone wish to vote on it? I realize what my parents must have went through when I was young. I also realize that my parents wer a little more strict with the idiot box than my wife or I am. I also realize that the whole concept really is insipid, vapid and a total waste of time. The times of my life when I had no T.V. I was more productive and less irritable. I'd get rid of the silly thing, but if I did, I'd have a hard time watching informative programs such as The Simpsons or South Park.

Forget gas, now you're cooking with a light bulb.

From playing with rats yesterday to using her birthday presents today. Mmmmmm chocolate.

Go Figure

My daughter just had her ninth birthday party at a no kill animal shelter outside of town. She was allowed to pick three animals for her friends and self to interact with and she decided on a bunny rabbit and two rats. Yep rats! I'm so proud.

Stupid Naked Spam

So I cleaned out my spam folder for the first time in over a week today. It seems I have been a naughty and busy boy as one of the spam messages claimed to have "caught me naked" and I could click to see the video. Another claimed to have a video of me doing something stupid. I sure hope it is actually just one video of me doing something stupid while naked. Oh the possibilities...

Some of my Favorite Movies

High Plains Drifter
Casablanca
Rocky (the first one)
Animal House