But, WHY?!?

Okay, here's one from the "They have a sport for that?!?" department...

I was reading an online insurance industry newsletter this morning. Occasionally, they'll have a quite off-the-wall news bit. This one is about the World Bog Snorkeling Championships.

So why would anyone want to get into a 60-yard long "dirty, smelly wet trench in the middle of a mid Wales peat bog"? Well, okay, there have been weirder things.

I think people have way too much time on their hands. They ought to go out and start a blog or something...

Humbled into running

Weather.com says it's 92F outside right now. Normally, I don't think I'd try to run because it's just hot and I'm into the comfort kind of thing. However, I just picked up my daughter from her cross-country practice where she did a heck of a lot more work than I'm going to do.

So, in honor of her, I'm going to go out and run now. Slowly. After drinking lots of water. Taking sidetrips through any active sprinklers. And following shadows.

Hope there will be more posts. If not, the heat got me. Someone think up a clever epitaph for my wife to use on my headstone.

Thanks.

My thought for the day...

A movie even DaltonGirl will love

This is for you, our tomato-cannin' gal, DaltonGirl! Enjoy.

Store Wars!

"I think I'll blog on my post..."

And so my day has been. The title of this post is what I said to my wife. It's been a hard day...

Anyway, the post that I wanted to blog (did you know blog is a verb? -- if it isn't, it should be) about is the excitement at work today. We had a fire drill!

Somewhere around 3:00pm, alarms started beeping. At first, I thought the power had gone out and it was all the UPSes in the office going off... but NO! It was the FIRE ALARM! AGGGHHH!! FIRE! Okay, maybe not a fire, but the alarm was going off.

So first thing, let's get everybody out of the office. While the announcement went around that, yes, it's probably a false alarm, but let's get everyone out, I went downstairs to see what caused it... and probably lost more of my hearing in the stairwell than at a rock concert.

Finally, I found one of the construction guys looking a little sheepish, so I went over and asked him if he knew what was going on. Turns out he was testing the fire suppression system for a new office, and thought building maintenance had set the alarms system to test mode, but apparently (or is that obviously?) they had not.

So while we waited for building maintenance to reset the alarm, we all mulled around outside. In those few minutes, I found out a few things about people.

1. I know who I'm not going to be with in a real emergency, since she decided she needed to take the elevator down from the third to the first floor.

2. A number of people took their prized possessions down with them. Around the parking lot I saw things like a bike, purses, a camera, a soda. Interesting.

3. Our network admin headed for the server room and got the fire extinguisher out, just in case.

4. My car pool companion decided that he better grab his keys, his wallet, and his wireless phone. Everything he'd need for when we leave work... an hour later. He was just being prepared. He even turned his computer off.

I guess we really should come up with an emergency evacuation procedure, so in the event of a real emergency people don't take the elevator, or stay behind to defend the servers, or rescue their Captain Kirk lifesize cutout (yes, we have one in the office).

My latest plane (boo-hoo!)

Well, here's my latest plane, a Molt Models Tyro. It's taken about seven or eight months total to finish it, mainly because I work on it when I have a few minutes at work during lunch. And even then, my co-worker got tired of waiting for me to finish off the trim, so he took it home and finished off some of the trim pieces and connections.

Here it is on the ground.


Here it is in the air.


And here it is on the ground again. (The boo-hoo part!)


Luckily the only damage was to the wing. It's being repaired now as I type (I hope). I had given my friend the rest of the covering I used for the plane, so he's doing the repairs for me. I'm hoping to be back in the air early next week -- this time without tricky wind!

You know you're in trouble when . . .

You know you're in trouble when you ask your wife how much the kids' back-to-school clothes cost and she tells you how much she saved!

To Boldly Go. . .

watch TV.

I know what I'll be doing on September 8.

Danger, Will Robinson!

If you've bought a Dell laptop anytime in the last couple of years (or a battery), make sure you visit this site. After all, I wouldn't want this to happen to you!

Recent comments

Just made a change to the ol' blog.

I added 'recent comments' on the sidebar. You can find out how to do it yourself right here.

neither rain, nor snow, nor gloom of night, . . .

will keep the post office from hiring ninnies.

We hadn't seen our mail for three days. We always have some kind of mail. Usually junk, but something. So it was just really strange to have an empty mailbox. I thought maybe the carrier misdelivered our mail (not good), but that someone would drop it off to us. Didn't happen. So I decided I would look into it a little more and go on down to the local post office. Following is the basic conversation (I'm quoting, but I'm not positive on the wording...)

"Hi, I haven't seen our mail for three days and was wondering if maybe it's on vacation hold."
"Oh, are you in the business park? They have a new carrier." (This wasn't comforting just in itself.)
"No."
"What's your address."
I give it to him. He also asks for my name, and off he goes.
He eventually comes out with an armful of mail.
"So why was our mail on hold?" I ask him.
"You requested that it be put on vacation hold."
"May I see that, please?"
He whips out a piece of paper.
"This is a request from our last vacation." I say as I point out the dates on the paper -- July 18 to July 21.
He just stares at the paper blankly, then at me.
"So the vacation hold is cancelled now?"
"Yeah."
I pick up my mail and walk out.

So help me out here. How do you get August 8 through presumably August 11 when the paper clearly says July 18 to July 21? (By the way, we were wondering why our mail was being delivered during our vacation in July, which luckily, our neighbors were so kind to pick up for us.)

I can only shake my head in disbelief.

When we have another drought. . .

I just had a brainstorm.

I looked at the weather forecast. Not a cloud to be seen for the next eight days. I looked out the window. Not a cloud to be seen anywhere in the sky.

So, I wash the car. Then what happens? Of course, you know.

I took my wife out to lunch and on the way back, it's getting windy and there are all these dark clouds around. A storm cell is moving through the valley! When just a few hours before it was nothing but blue, it was now gray! Just my luck, I think. Then back at the office I tell one of my wife's co-workers it was clear when I washed my car, and now it's going to rain, and she says the same thing happens to her! A-ha!

Since the same thing happens to everyone (go ahead, just ask anyone what happens when they wash their car. I'll wait.), why not put it to good use?

Next time there is a drought, forget cloud seeding, forget praying for rain. Let's just set up a day when everyone washes their car at the same time! (using water conservative techniques, of course) That will open up the heavens for sure!

I'm so brilliant it's scary.