Dale Miller

For the most part, I managed to accomplish nothing worthwhile this weekend. I consumed too many calories, spent too much money, and ignored housework.

I was just having one of those “I don’t care” weekends. That’s never a good thing. It’s only superficial, because Monday morning came and I got out of bed and came to work, so I at least care sufficiently to do that. But there are times that I sit at home and wonder why I do any of the things I do. There is such a serious temptation to say “Okay, that’s enough”, buy a plane ticket to some tropical island, and never return. The only problem is that if I buy a ticket I can be traced, so the bill collectors will know where to look for me. But, if I’m unemployed, what can they do to me? Of course, I wouldn’t do that, because there would be no one to take care of the cats. It’s actually kind of bad that the cats are really the only thing holding me back.

I was pleased to see that Kellogg’s has renamed “Cocoa Rice Krispies” back to the original “Cocoa Krispies”. I’m not sure why it matters, but changing the name just for the sake of changing the name always feels wrong.

I had hoped that today would bring no rain and still air. If so, then I could implement my plan for removing my brush pile. Lo and behold, that was exactly the case. 40ish degrees, still air, and overcast but not rainy. So, I headed down to the street, poured a gallon or so of gasoline over the brush pile, lit it, and stood back to watch it burn — for about two minutes before it went out completely. Okay… so I poured another 5 gallons of gasoline over it, making sure to get the stuff in the middle covered well, lit a fire-starter brick, and gently tossed it into the interior. I was rewarded with a satisfying WHOOSH and a lovely flame that lasted for about ten minutes. Hmmm… what else did I have to start a fire? Oh yes, I had an old 47# propane cylinder with a POL-style valve. I carried it down to the street, lit a match and opened the valve. It makes a fairly impressive flame that carries 5-8 feet. I directed the flame into the pile and watched as it burned a bit more away. But, as soon as I shut off the propane the flames died away. Since I had no good use for that tank, I emptied most of the propane (flaming) into my pile. I blackened a bit more of it, but it didn’t affect much of the interior. I did, however, make a couple of interesting (if obvious in hindsight) discoveries:

When you empty a propane tank rapidly, it becomes quite cold, and some of the propane inside turns solid.

If you then turn the tank upside down and open the valve, you get propane snow. That’s really kind of cool.

If you spray the propane snow over the dying embers of a fire, as they sublimate they will burn explosively. Rather neat, and a bit scary.

All-in-all, I had far too much fun playing with flammable materials, and accomplished almost nothing with regard to getting rid of my brush pile. The problem is, if the pile is dry, so are the woods nearby. I want to burn it when the woods aren’t likely to catch from a wayward spark.

I wonder how well napalm would work…

I spent most of yesterday morning asleep (and yes, I was home in bed, for those of you about to comment on state jobs). I then drank lots of coffee yesterday evening, resulting in my staying up far too late last night.

I awoke this morning to the sounds of Oscar trashing my bathroom. Since it was early morning, that bled over into a dream of Oscar trashing the bathroom, except in the dream there were a number of glass items (of undefined function) sitting on the counter. I was halfway out of bed to stop him before I became sufficiently awake to realize that there was nothing breakable on the counter. I have cats, I don’t leave breakable things accessible. :)

Mark and I had a long phone conversation last night. It’s no wonder people think we are both a bit strange. The topics of the call included (but were not limited to)

• Anime series
• The difference between a Geiger counter and a CD V-715 radiation meter
• The proposed path of Interstate 69
• The Osborne and Kaypro luggable computers
• Weidities about Arkansas. Such as:
  • Most of the country’s parking meters are manufactured by Duncan Industries (Harrison), and POM (Russellville) — Fun fact: The internal mechanism of the two meters is identical. You can use Duncan mechanics in a POM case and vice-versa
  • The largest publicly-owned trucking firm in the U.S. is J.B.Hunt, in Lowell (which wasn’t on an Interstate until 1997)
  • Arkansas is, of course, the only state in the U.S. to have a diamond mine
  • AmTran (formerly Ward) produces a significant fraction of the school buses on the road
  • Jacuzzi corporation is right outside of Little Rock
  • FedEx started in Little Rock (but soon moved to Memphis)
  • Home to both Wal-Mart and Tyson Foods

  And with all of that we are still one of the poorest states in the U.S.

• History of fallout shelters and civil defense

’twas a dreary drive home. My previous post was sent from Sufficient Grounds, where I had supper. On the way home it rained the entire way, and was foggy for the final three miles. I can deal with the rain, but I really don’t like driving in the fog.

On a completely different note — if one begins a sentence with the word “’twas”, is the t capitalized, or is the omitted i considered the capital letter?

Too long between updates again. I need to quit doing this. Now, the question is do I:
a) Just ignore everything I’ve wanted to write in the past week, and pick up with now?
b) Just lump everything into one huge post? or
c) Make a bunch of different posts and then backdate them?

Option C appeals to the nerd in me, but I think I’ll go with B. Otherwise people who have me on their friends page would be annoyed with me.

So, without (too much) further ado:

Choir was very good last night. I’m really going to enjoy this, I can tell. I was worried when I saw “community chorus” that the music might be a bit on the bland side, catering to the lowest common denominator. That’s not the case at all. The two pieces we have been given so far are a Schubert mass and a Ralph Vaughn Williams hymn. Both are fairly challenging. I had forgotten how much I missed being in a choir. Now I just need to get acquainted with some of the other members so I can say something other than “hey you”.

There were three new attractive females in water aerobics on Thursday. I always enjoy nice scenery when I’m working out. Hopefully they will be back next week. There are very few of us who come regularly, but a number of people who only come once or twice. It’s really a good workout, regardless of what people may think about it.

The web server migration that Jennifer did last weekend was not without its problems. I spent a fair portion of my week diagnosing and repairing permission problems, account issues, web server configuration changes, etc. I thought that everything was working, but I tried a script tonight that failed, so apparently someone broke something today that I had fixed earlier in the week.

I know when the weather is getting warmer by the number of small animals (or parts thereof) that I find in my house. When it’s cold and wet the felines tend to stay indoors. I came home Tuesday night to find three lizards proudly displayed for me directly in front of the kitchen. It’s good to know that my cats want to provide for me.

Okay, I fixed the problem with the web server. I’ll have to figure out who broke it.

I have signed up for Wal-Mart video rentals. They are a competitor to NetFlix, and jbtipshus seems to like them. I am not terribly impressed with their selection of movies, or maybe I just have strange tastes.

Someone has given me a present!!!

I carried my garbage down to the street a few minutes ago, and realized that the area near the street that I had started clearing was all cleared! The entire stretch from one end of my property to the other. I don’t know if the power company came back and cleared it, or if someone else did it out of the goodness of their heart — I suspect the power company. If I had realized they were going to do that, I wouldn’t have spend so much time on it. Ah well, it was good exercise for me. The only thing they didn’t clear off is where I had piled the brush that I had already cut down. That’s not so bad, though. Now that there’s nothing around it, I can burn it when the day is not so windy. I have no idea when it was done, since that is the first time I’ve been at the end of my driveway in daylight since last weekend. I’m looking forward to longer (and warmer) days.

I am genuinely sleepy this morning. I think if I’m going to be in this community choir that I’m going to have to plan my days better. I must come straight home on Thursday nights and go directly to bed. I made it home last night around 10, but didn’t hit the bed until 11:30. That’s far too late for a man with his alarm set for 5:00.

Today, like many days, had its good and its bad points.

Good points:

• I managed to get the weekly backup set up and tested on our remaining VMS system. I finally gave up on getting an Omniback client for it, and just used VMS backup to a local drive and the tape management system we wrote in-house years ago.
• It was the first night for the new UALR Community choir, and that was quite enjoyable. I had forgotten how good it felt to sing in a choir.
• The weather was beautiful this afternoon, and I managed to find a good excuse to go for a walk around campus.
• The moon is lovely tonight.
• When I cam home, there were four kitties waiting just inside the door to greet me (Ashley was being lazy).
• I felt like getting up this morning, and got to work not only on time, but a little early.
• I went through about 80 messages in my inbox, performed whatever task was requested, and replied or deleted them as appropriate.
• I found a utility (BitPim) to allow me to up/download the directory on my cell phone to my computer. It’s so much easier to edit things that way.
• I had no particular conflicts with anyone at the office.

Bad points:

• The choir meets from 7:00 to 9:00 P.M., which causes me to not arrive home until 10:00. a 16-hour day is quite long
• I an even more envious of Jack than ever. He was offered the chance to teach a networking class for the Engineering Technology department. I miss being in front of a classroom.
• A development in office politics that I won’t go into here. I’m not directly involved, but it annoys me.
• Gas prices are up again.
• I consumed far too many calories.

Thanks to brandyeileen for this laugh. (The content contains language that may not be work safe, and the surrounding ads are questionable).