Why get up and go downtown at stupidly early hours of the morning on a day I don’t have to work?
To see the penguin, of course!
It’s too bad this trip was to say goodbye to Endeavor. I may have more to say about the shuttle later, but for now, it’s enough to say, I saw this.
I can has all the root beer?
(Taken outside River City Brewing, which does have really good root beer. And also some excellent microbrews, I’m told.)
Alright. A friend suggested I blog more. So, guess what? I’m going to try to blog more.
And geez this place is dusty and a bit stale. So gotta clean it up a bit.
So, making some changes around here. There’s a sweet extension called Jetpack that lets you tie your hosted WordPress blog into a lot of wordpress.com features, and I’ve enabled the comment feature. You can now comment via your Facebook, Twitter, or WordPress.com account. (Or you can still fill in the blanks yourself, I think. Needs testing.)
I might change up the theme, I haven’t decided yet. I am going to make some changes to the content. I’m debating whether to force LJ commenters over here or not — for the moment, I’ll leave the option, but it is something that I’m thinking about. I know I occasionally use the LJ account for musings that I’d prefer to keep semi-private and consolidating comments on an all too public blog doesn’t help that goal.
Other question — as I’m starting up the blog slog again, topics would be a nice suggestion.
A few I’m likely to veto, though:
I’m not entirely averse to discussing politics, but I’m a bit tired of it and at the point where I’m likely to descend into long rants that will offend half the political spectrum, including several members of my family. (I love them very deeply even if I do not understand why they vote the way they do.)
Religion’s also a tough one, as I’m capable of some rather unorthodox opinions on the subject. That said, I actually own a Qur’an and have been wanting to read it for a while now, but I want to get a better handle on the founding religious document of the faith of my culture first, so I’m thinking about doing a Bible read. (I’m also thinking about doing a Book of Mormon read for two reasons: (1) the lulz (2) like it or not, Mormonism is a uniquely American religion and is going to play a larger part in the culture going forward. Mitt Romney might be the first Mormon to make it this far, but I am certain he will not be the last.)
Other than that, I’m pretty much open to subject matter. Go ahead, toss away. See what you can come up with.
That’s about it. Please bear with our mess, we hope to have construction complete in the near future.
In the meantime, katster go sleep.
It’s always a bit sad for me when I discover that an alum of my beloved alma mater has passed on. It is doubly sad when the death in question is connected with the horrible events in Benghazi on Tuesday.
The Ambassador to Libya was J. Christopher Stevens, Cal ’82. He majored in history, the same major I would graduate with eighteen years later. I know there are Berkeley alumni around the world, doing amazing and fantastic things, but we’re all connected in some crazy way. I was already sad over the events in Libya (and throughout the rest of the Middle East), but this just adds another small connection to the event and a reminder that we’re all connected to each other in ways we may fail to realize or understand.
The life of Ambassador Stevens represents everything we hope for in our students. He majored in history to learn about the world, and then he used that knowledge to make the world a better place. We are proud of his career. His death is a tragedy, and we mourn his passing.
History Department Chair Ethan Shagan (link)
(I have other degrees of separation to another man killed in the attack, and that one is also bothering me because I’ve thought seriously about joining the diplomatic service as an IT professional. I may or may not write about that later.)
Yep, another fanzine. You can get it here:
Rhyme & Paradox #1½ [PDF]
Or if you want to read past issues, you can go here: Rhyme & Paradox main page
My thanks, as always, to Bill Burns, for hosting.
Here’s a teaser of the cover:
The photo is credit Patrice Dufour, and can be found here on stock.xchng, a nifty free for non-commercial projects stock photo site. When I saw this one, I knew it would be perfect for this issue of Rhyme.
Now to get the rest of the layout done.
So, we’re at my uncle’s house, passing around my welder’s goggles I bought to keep my eyes protected during the height of the eclipse. It wasn’t my turn, so I turn around, away from the sun, and suddenly gawp. “Look at the rocks!”
Here’s what they looked like — click through, it’s definitely more obvious on the Flickr page, especially on the back of my uncle’s shirt:
They looked like that, because they were under a tree, and the sun looked something like this:
Photo by retstak
(That’s shot on a cellphone camera through a pair of welder’s goggles, so my apologies for the size.)
Yeah, it was definitely worth it to go to Redding this weekend to see an annular eclipse.
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create
[…]
And time yet for a hundred indecisions
And for a hundred visions and revisions
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
(And this is here only to keep LJ from completely munging up the text when I post it…I hope it will work.)
Something showed up in the mail today.
It is a totally awesome hat. It keeps my head warm. It is in my favorite color. It slouches quite admirably. It has a sweet band design. And it was made by the completely amazing
(And the instructions which came with hat were hilarious too.)
I’ve spent all afternoon wearing it despite the fact that the house is way too warm for a wool cap. :) I feel pretty darn special right now.
PS: I don’t think I’ve shared a picture of me wearing my new glasses yet either, so well, that’s me in my new glasses as well.
Since it’s my car, it’s a fracking pain in the rear.
Yeah, some $#*(&(*#$&@ went and spraypainted my car. There’s also a streak of orange down the passenger’s side, and some lovely green on the driver’s side, but the headlights are the worst victim, and the most frustrating part of the whole thing.
That said…it’s spraypaint. I don’t know what they’re going to have to do to fix it. *sigh*
It’s a sweet gesture, Sobe Bottle, and I appreciate it, but…I think the relatives would be a bit freaked out by the idea of my marrying a drink beverage bottle.
Presented without comment.
So every once in a while, I get a bug in my head about reading the labels on things and seeing just what the companies that make various processed food items think is a reasonable serving size. Tonight, I decided to try it with the ranch dressing packets. I glanced at the box: Serving Size ½ tsp. Okay, I think to myself, fish a half teaspoon out of the silverware drawer, and put it on my salad.
Wait, whu, that’s not much at all. That sucks. There’s not even enough there to dab. They have to have messed that up. Maybe it was tablespoons. Back to the box.
Photo by retstak
No, that’s definitely teaspoons. But, wait, what is this…
Prepared: 2 tbsp.
And then it all becomes clear — the half teaspoon is a serving size of just the powder, not the prepared mix of powder, milk, and mayonnaise. Whoops.
I think I need to retake reading comprehension.
(Hey, at least I can laugh at my adventures in stupidity.)
It’s Girl Scout cookie time. But Ebony’s already laid claim to hers — not because she likes cookies, but she likes the height they afford her.
Or well, maybe you have a better caption. Let’s hear it.
So, you all saw the picture of the Capitol Building at one end of Capitol Mall. You may have asked yourself — what’s on the other end? This.
To be specific, this is the Tower Bridge, crossing the Sacramento River between the City of Sacramento and West Sacramento. It’s a drawbridge — it raises up, and allows the boat to pass underneath.
What’s under the bridge? Subject for another time, but you might have an idea after seeing this photo from last spring.
What’s on the other side of the bridge? Wait until baseball season, my friend!