A joke among the family (and nowhere else) is an adaptation of the Muppet Show joke involving talking houses.
“My wife’s not feeling well,” one house says to the other.
“What’s the matter?”
“She’s got the eyeball sting!”
This is uproariously funny to Hallie and Travis (the original punch line is “she’s got the shingles”). I wasn’t laughing earlier this week, though; I had the real eyeball sting. It was some sort of conjunctivitis in my right eye.
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I drove yesterday for the first time in days and was surprised to see gas at $3.85 a gallon. Oil crossed the $135/barrel mark yesterday and will no doubt continue upward. Was this the “Surge” of which Bush was speaking?
I was just thinking back to my posts about gas prices. Here’s one where $1.97 was too much. Ha! And then there’s my July 2005 “Crude Awakening” post. I’m wistful for the $2.30 a gallon prices I was bemoaning then.
Back then I was also wondering when gas might be $5 a gallon. I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re there by the end of the year. All the more reason I’m happy my commuter vehicle of choice has two wheels.
I got the schedules working last night for my new MythTV setup and quickly fell in love with my MythTV. Sure, Tivo’s been doing this stuff for ten years now, but to have it on my home-built machine, with my own hardware, for a yearly subscription fee of $20 rather than a monthly fee? I’m sold!
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I’ve had this tower PC all spec’ed out as a MythTV box for probably two years now. Its got a Hauppauge Nexus-S DVB-S satellite TV card and an AverMedia PVR-150 TV tuner card (a TigerDirect cheapie) in it as well as a 300Gig hard drive. All I could get out of it was some of the free satellite TV channels, and then only using command-line linuxTV applications to change channels. I could never get the TV tuner card to work, so the box sat mostly idle.
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It will continue to rain heavily every other day. That is, until I finally get around to collecting rainwater again. This is similar to having it rain right after washing one’s car.
Barack Obama’s rally yesterday in Portland, Oregon drew an eye-popping 75,000 people. That’s completely mind-blowing. You’ve got to admit there’s something magical happening.
Its shaping up to be an interesting November!
(h/t COD)
Two years ago I wrote how the picture of little Sean Ford Paddock haunted me. It still does. Kids don’t deserve the kind of abuse this poor kid and his siblings had to suffer. It turns my stomach.
Now the murder trial of Lynn Paddock has begun. I hope that something good can come out of this, that something will change, but I’m not optimistic.
Its such a complex problem. Sean couldn’t stay home because of abuse. He couldn’t stay with his uncle because of the expense. All he had left was Lynn Paddock, the adoptive mother who offered him a loveless home. Where do you go when your parents aren’t fit to be parents?
Think Raleigh flubbed the recent disposal ban? That was nothing compared to the controversy Raleigh had in May 1932.
According to David Prerau’s book Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time, in May 1932 Raleigh became one of the few Southern cities to adopt Daylight Saving Time. Like a lot of decisions both past and present, the city held a public hearing when it began studying the matter. The meeting was packed with DST supporters, many of whom touted the recreational benefits of the time change. Local businesses got behind the plan, and shortly afterward city commissioners overwhelmingly approved the move to DST. On May 1, 1932, less than two days after the vote, Raleigh moved its clocks ahead for the very first time.
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Among the many great things that happened today, this morning featured my wife telling me “I’m enjoying our lives right now.”
She’s right. We had a great weekend, with a fun housewarming party yesterday, a number of family bike rides, and a kids’ party or two. The weather has been beautifully sunny and also beautifully stormy. We’re in a good spot, that’s for sure.
We’re very, very fortunate to have the friends and family we have. Y’all rock!
Travis and I got out this afternoon for a tandem bike ride along the Middle Crabtree Trail greenway.
It was teh awesome! A long boardwalk through wetlands, followed by a nice smooth stretch through woods, passing under two sets of train tracks and Capital Boulevard and Atlantic Avenue! Travis and I went as far as the CSX tracks northwest of Atlantic Avenue before turning back because we ran out of time. In that stretch, though, we traveled some impressive boardwalks in a relaxing, woodsy setting. In twenty minutes we made it from home almost to Wake Forest Road.
I look forward to finding time to continue even further west on this gem of a greenway!
