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Rainy day

Looked like this all day:

We did have our weekly breakfast at the Barbecue House, though. That was the brightest, sunniest part of the day. Otherwise it was warmish and gray. I believe the “sun” — that mythical ball of burning hydrogen out in space — called it quits around 3 p.m.

Not that you’d know. The gray just got grayer, so it is all supposition.

Went out to watch a swim meet, but got stuck in traffic. There was a fender-bender on a two lane road and no one moves. I was five cars back — just far enough back that I could not see what the problem was — and no one moved. The third car, the first one not in the accident, must have never seen a crash before. I imagine the driver was gripped with fear. “Now what? I’d go into the oncoming lane, but there’s already been one crunched bumper. No police officer or insurance agent should have to work one small crash in the same place!”

And so we sat, and sat, and sat. The guy behind me had enough, and he and I swapped lanes, cruised by and continued on with our lives. Later, when we realized the swim meet was a bust, I took a different route home. Who knows how the shattered headlight glass was holding things up down that little road.

In the subdivision then, there’s an SUV parked at a weird angle on the road. It looked like the driver was turning into the driveway and just gave up. A bit farther down I was preparing to show him how it was done — “See? Allll the way in the drive … ” — when I noticed a tire in our yard.

There should be no tire in our yard.

A young man is walking around the SUV, which has only three tires on it. He is OK. His father was driving, he is also OK. This is his daughter’s SUV. He’d just had serviced yesterday. She complained of how it was handling so he got in to take it for a spin. He’d made it about 100 yards and this happened:

So this is the drama of the neighborhood. The tire flung off — we think all of the lug nuts were either not returned or improperly attached. We only found one lug nut.

One of the bolts had been sheered off. Some of the rim had been bored out from the damage. The fender well had been cracked.

When the tire slipped off it spun back and up, denting the fender and damaging the running board. The alignment, the disc, the suspension were all damaged.

And here is the AAA wrecker pulling the truck on to take back to the dealership. Note the gouge in the road:

The father was relieved he’d been driving rather than his daughter. All were relieved it happened in the neighborhood rather than the interstate. Dad said the dealership has worked on his cars for years. All agreed it was an honest mistake.

So we met some neighbors we did not previously know. The dad is an attorney. His daughters are in school at nearby Southern Union. His son, who may be about 14, is on pace to become the next crocodile hunter. Apparently he removed an 8-foot alligator from a pond across town last summer by himself.

Do not mess with that kid.

And that’s an exciting evening in our quiet little neighborhood.

journalism / links / Thursday / Twitter / video — Comments Off
5
Jan 12

Free political, visual advice

I noted on Twitter that it should be no surprise that a soap called “Dancing Waters” from Bath & Body Works doesn’t remove chain grease. Someone observed that is “kind of like saying the aromatherapy candles don’t get rid of the exhaust smell from your Harley.”

Great line, but only because he’s never heard of the exceptionally strong soy scented candles.

The Internet can’t describe the smell, which is a failure of the human olfactory cortex — linked to the hippocampus, but not to the thalamus.

The U.S. broadcast media says “SOPA? What’s that?”

Controversial legislation that the co-founder of Google has warned “would put us on a par with the most oppressive nations in the world” has received virtually no coverage from major American television news outlets during their evening newscasts and opinion programming. The parent companies of most of these networks, as well as two of the networks themselves, are listed as official “supporters” of this legislation on the U.S. House of Representatives’ website.

As the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) makes its way through Congress, most major television news outlets — MSNBC, Fox News, ABC, CBS, and NBC — have ignored the bill during their evening broadcasts. One network, CNN, devoted a single evening segment to it.

I get it. They have corporate bosses who have bosses who have properties that think this will protect them. Also, broadcasters aren’t carrying a torch for online entities — since they are so often being torched by online entities. (Though Poynter is finally telling journalists they should be concerned about all this. How any advocate of the First Amendment could read this legislation and not be troubled is beyond me.) We’re moving a significant way down the slippery slope.

God bless America, we need the help.

Speaking of politics, Dale Peterson is back. Remember this guy?

His wife is now running for office. Or, as he says, is “after the republican nomination …”

It isn’t the rifle, or even the pace of the thing, but the air quotes. They’re just reaching out of your monitor, trying to drag you to your polling place … it is an unsettling gesture. If you must do air quotes on video, do them parallel to your ears.

adventures / family / food / photo / recipes / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
27
Dec 11

The day after the day after Christmas

Went to the mall. That’s safe, right?

Santa’s gothic stand is still in place, but no one has any more use for it.

It is as if we’ve said: The season has passed you by, old man. We’re here to return things, not ask for more from you. And why did you bring me this awful thing anyway?

We were not returning things, however. We’d ventured into the cold and damp for a visit to the Apple Store. No longer do people wish to see Saint Nick. Now they are looking for Saint Steve.

We were there to look at iPads for my father-in-law. He wanted something a bit more new than his hulking desktop. He’d told us what he wanted to do and we decided that this might be the way to go. We just had to put one into his hands.

This being his first Apple Store experience, it was a bit eye-opening. We showed him the basics in the crowded store, he didn’t seem especially into it at first, but ended up buying one. We snagged a salesman pretty quickly. He went through the data-mining procedure. Told my father-in-law to sign his device. He looked around in vain for a pen, a stylus, anything. The kid was concerned with his lunch break.

“What? Am I supposed to use my finger?” he asked, if a bit sarcastically.

“Oh yeah. Just use your finger. I see it every day and have gotten used to it. Sorry,” he said.

This was the first thing my father-in-law had ever signed for with his fingertips. We live in an age of wonders.

Got him home and opened the box. The Yankee signed him up for iTunes. I threw way too much information at him at once. He logged in, found his home network, registered and started playing with it. One little hiccup later and he was suddenly a professional.

My mother-in-law came in and said “Is this how it is going to be from now on?”

“Huh?”

She said, “Finally I can have control of the remote. For the first time since we’ve had a remote!”

They’re on a cable system that has an app which acts as a remote control.

Had dinner with The Yankee’s collegiate diving coach. They were comparing dives they threw a decade ago. They seemed to recall teammates technique with alarming clarity. Let that be a lesson for all of us.

We had dinner at a place called The Black Duck. It is an old ship that is tied to the bank under an interstate. It looks like it is falling into the river. It was featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. Guy Fieri pointed out on the show that it looked like the place was falling into the river.

It could be that the place is falling into the river.

I wondered if it was happening on a trip to the restroom, where the floor is at a severe tilt. Turns out you’re OK as long as you notice the tilt. It is when you don’t feel the angle, I was told, that you should call a cab.

The steamed clams were a big feature on the show, but the burgers were the quintessential calling card. I had the stuffed bleu cheese burger. It was pretty good. You would think places featured on a show like that would blow you away, but this was perfectly acceptable. It was a bit pricey, but that could be the regional thing, too. As with the few other places featured on that show, this one gets some bad reviews online, but that could be two trolls with an axe to grind against the Food Network for all anyone knows.

The stuffed procedure involves tearing apart 12 ounces, putting the cheese in the middle and then putting one part of the patty on top of the other, closing up the seams so there’s no leakage. I was surprised to learn from the segment that these were 12-ounce patties. I do believe they cooked them down. Judge for yourself:

By the time we got back the in-laws were asleep. The iPad was nowhere to be found.

history / overwriting / photo / video / weekend — Comments Off
25
Dec 11

Peace on earth

Not to be Santa-centric, but this particular Santa’s helper is family. I hope your Christmas has been a blessing of family and friends and peace and joy very kind.

We had the chance last night, in a dimly lit church, to sing Silent Night with a fine and internationally renowned baritone. It was about as moving a musical experience as you can ask for. I hope for you that your holidays provide moving moments and lasting memories.

I hope to remember the man I met this week who thought he had cancer in his kidney. A checkup sent him to an oncologist, which meant tests and then an operation. It was not cancer, but he was bleeding internally. Still lucky — timing is everything and he could have bled to death — they removed half a kidney. It is, he said, “the best Christmas in 15 years.”

I hope to remember the Jamaican immigrant, who’d already worked two jobs on Friday when we met and will work two jobs on Christmas day. He’s been here for six years, he said. “And this is the number one country, the best country in the world.”

There are hundreds, thousands, of little stories like that which don’t involve any of the lovely presents we’ve purchased or received. I hope you remember to count them in your blessings, too.

And for no reason whatsoever, remember that Christmas when the world felt very small, and all of creation seemed so much more immense. Our reaching outward, seeking a goal, stretching for some larger discovery and achievement, meant an especially poignant look inward:

“(G)ood night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you — all of you on the good Earth.”

journalism / Twitter / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
21
Dec 11

News at 10

I feel disconnected here, because my computer time is drastically cut short compared to work and home. That’s fine, and as it should be, but this makes news junkies twitchy.

There might be news! Someone could write a compelling essay and link to it on Twitter! What if I miss a really great joke? Or what if there’s a brand new meme!?

Life is hard, I know.

I read the local paper this afternoon. The Times Daily‘s lead story today has to do with a lack of funding for the local landfill:

With a depleted Solid Waste Fund temporarily carrying the load for garbage disposal, the City Council must find another source of money to meet state and federal requirements for the eventual closing and monitoring of its landfill.

Dan Barger, city treasurer/chief accountant, told the council Tuesday that more than $2 million is needed to satisfy requirements for landfill closure. He said it probably will have to come from the General Fund.

The Environmental Protection Agency requires owners and operators of municipal solid waste landfills to show proof they have adequate funds earmarked for closure costs and monitoring the landfill for 30 years after closure, Barger said.

Because the Solid Waste Fund has operated with losses of more than 5 percent the past two years, he said that fund no longer satisfies the financial tests necessary to guarantee closure operations.

The print version had to do with only two weeks worth of space remaining in the current landfill cell. The council has been split for some times, it seems, along a 3-3 vote, on whether to add to the existing space or ship off trash to a third-party site. The mayor, the story said, had had enough and last night started naming names.

My grandparents have taken to watching the city council meetings on television. They don’t even live within the city limits. That’s how entertaining these meetings can be. And you’ve been shirking your civic duty.

Also watched the local 5 p.m. news. The lead story on the B-block was the traditional Better Business Bureau story warning you of e-card scams. Someone had to write a tease for that piece. But it was a relatively slow news day. There was a fatal car accident and two men were caught in a check stealing scheme.

Shame they didn’t have this footage of a dog terrorizing the local stuffed citizenry:

Finished the Christmas shopping today with a whimper. The last thing I picked up was a gift card.