A Place On The . Net

Our first night at Glacier National Park went very well. That came as a surprise because the day got off to a horrible start. I'll spare the details but when a shelf broke in the pantry, with me under it, I wasn't too hopeful for the day.
We got to the park just as the darkest of storm clouds cast shadow on the campground. The boys wasted no time setting up the tent and screen house. We worked to the sound of thunder and somehow managed to double our speed when we felt the rain.
But a few drops was all we got. The very moment our camp was established the storm packed up and went to bother someone else. We spent the rest of the night fishing and at a presentation, all without the use of wet weather gear. In fact I slept most of the night with my sleeping bag open.
That's all for now. The boys are finally waking up so it's time to explore.

Not much time for a serious entry on this but....

This mornings news included this story from Yahoo. I caught the story on NPR this morning on my way in to work as well and the media pretty much had be believing this guy was evil and guilty. That is until I read this:

Kemp said that Ivins' death was the result of the government's "relentless pressure of accusation and innuendo"

That hit a little too close to home for me. Not that I had to put up with anything like "relentless pressure" but I do know what it's like to be under suspicion for something you would never do. I completely understand what could drive an innocent man to kill himself under these circumstances.

I am, like Mr. Kemp, saddened that the matter won't go to court now. It would have been good to know the truth. On the other hand, getting to that point is often more than the human soul can withstand, even if the truth is favorable.

At the risk of sounding like Rodney King, can't we simply learn to get along with Iran? Then again, maybe we do. This might be one more sign that our government is out of control.

As any ten people you encounter at random what they think of Iran and our relations with them. Chances are the majority of those ten people are going to look at you funny and then go about their day without discussing it with you. Apathy. Of those who do have an opinion I think you will find that most of those know little truth about the country, they really only know what Rush Limbaugh or CNN tell them.

You can be sure that the majority of the people aren't all fired up to get into a war with Iran. While the latest action in Iraq might have had motives that are now being examined, the fact is that we all understood the problem with Kuwait and the majority felt we had unfinished business. But Iran? Most of us could care less.

I would imagine that the average Iranian could really care less about you and I. It's easy to imagine that they wish we would just go away, sit down and shut the hell up.

So why not?

If our government is "by the people, for the people" then why not just walk away from Iran. When their government says stupid things, why not just put our fingers in our ears and go about the business of our daily lives?  If we did that then maybe we could realistically hope that they would do the same when our government says stupid things.

True, I haven't been very visible online for a while. I've hoped to get better about that. To some extent, I've been working in the background on various things. Honestly though, I got sick for a while and had crud at work to deal with.

Speaking of work, it's amazing how many people at work still seem to fear me because of this blog. The blog is but a very small part of my web sites. And any content related to local politics or local government has been minimal for the last year or more. Despite this I have been told by at least three people in the last week that several elected officials, law enforcement administrators and citizens with questionable motives remain terrified of my first amendment rights. All I can say is that if find it very hard to imagine. My counsel does tell me that one citizen with questionable motives does indeed have reason to fear, but that has nothing to do with this blog.

Moving right along....

Many of you know that Debbie turned over the financial management role to me after more than ten years. I took three days over my Xmas break and set up a spreadsheet for a budget. Payments to credit accounts (ones charging interest) began getting weekly payments. I set things up on a very conservative system, being conservative both on income as well as payments. The thing wasn't perfect, I've made a few adjustments and tweaked it a bit to fine tune. But it allowed me to automate payments and....I'm now nicely on target to elimination of all debt in just about one year. give or take, it can always be adapted for life. Life is pretty flexible and constantly changing. I've finally realized that a budget has to recognize that.

Anyway.....

It's been quite a week so far!  I won't even go into all the changes and drama at work (especially the "pending litigation" crap).  But yeah, there's been lots there too.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke, having completed 90 orbits around Sol, has departed.  One must assume that he's headed in the same direction as Heinlein and Asimov.  Maybe also in the company of Elvis and Morrison and Garcia.  I wonder if they're finding the next life to be everything they imagined.  Clarke sure had a way of writing.  I had many a daydream in my youth, flying my spaceship at near light speed, all because of his excellent books.  I remember how Rendezvous with Rama kind of freaked me out when I first read it.  Then 2001 freaked me out even more.  Good stories though, all of them.  Some of his later ones focused on the ocean and they were just as wonderful as the ones that focused on space.  They all actually focused on people, on the community of humans who will one day populate this universe.

Then there's the stock market.  Beautiful timing.  I've wanted to open a trading account for a while now and, just a couple of weeks ago, I finally did it.  With the means to trade I prepared myself to invest consistantly to build for an average profit in a few years (it's just a mad money account intended to pay for some crazy thing like a house down payment).  Then, for once in my life, the bargains begin to fall into my lap!  This could be like winning the lottery.  Not that I have much to invest but....I'm trying to buy as much as I can right now while they're pretty much giving away stocks.  I hope the prices stay low for a while.

Our friend Katie got a job today.  I won't steal the thunder there, see Bill's site for details.  But that's excellent news.

Read into this what you wish.  There's meaning here.  Count on it.  This song has been a favorite since I was a kid....oh yeah it's got meaning.  Thanks Phil.

When I first got my 1998 Isuzu Rodeo, it sounded pretty darn cool.  After driving a four door four banger for ten years, the smooth power of that V6 was wonderful.  It seemed like the more I drove it and the harder I drove it the better it sounded.  It wasn't long before I noticed an almost jet engine like intake sound and a sudden increase in power that had the tires smokin' at half throttle.

As it turns out, cracked intake gaskets are a common problem with that engine.  After investing $40 in parts and an hour of my labor the power was under control (darn it) and the engine purred like a kitten....one who has learned he'll get smacked if he's too aggressive with the ball of yarn.  Whatever, it still had a cool sound.

Under heavy acceleration there was still a noticeable squeal.  Again, the more I drove it, the more badass it sounded.  By the time we were ready to leave for Minnesota this sound had refined itself so that most people thought I had boosted the engine somehow.  The sound didn't show up at idle, only under load at half or more throttle....just what you would expect of some sort of turbocharger.

Yeah, I'm cool.

My first clue should have been in North Dakota at a rest area when I noticed that the cool sound had gone away and a new sound had developed at idle.  Whatever, drive 'er 'till it develops.  Good ole flight line mentality.

Two thousand miles later, with Katie's entire collection of possessions loaded in my trusty Isuzu, we were about to do the tourist thing at Devil's Tower in Wyoming.  I would love to have seen that up close.  We stopped at an historical marker, took some pictures, and then got back on the road to the tower.  Suddenly my cool sound, and the not so cool sound, were both gone with a BANG!

Now this is just hypothetical, just a "what if" for everyone to ponder or discuss.

Suppose that someone "accidentally" sent you an email, only they thought they were sending it to someone else. 

Suppose you and someone else had agreed to have a confidential conversation in email.  Suppose that person decided to break confidentiality by forwarding that email on to a third party.  Now suppose that person screwed up and wrote that third party but hit "Reply" instead of "Forward" and sent the email to you instead.  Imagine that.

Then imagine that you start getting email from this person on a regular basis, almost as if you're being blind copied on every message they send.  You now seem to be privy to all of their email conversations.  Some of what you see in the emails alarms you.

Just to make things really interesting, imagine that you suddenly start getting blind copied on emails from another person.  Not all of his emails, just ones that this person seems to think you would be interested in.  More email that alarms you.  Assume, for the sake of our hypothetical scenario, that this person never told you they were going to do this, they just started sending you the emails.  Some of these emails are about you.  Some of these emails show the unhealthy motives of several people including the other person who is sending you email.

Ponder that if you will.  Maybe contribute your thoughts here.  But keep in mind that while this situation is wildly hypothetical, there is a possibility that it could be very real.  Stranger things have happened.