Some hellacious thunderstorm blew through Georgetown at around 6am. I was so desperate for sleep that I put my pillow over my head to muffle the thunder and turned off my alarm. So, after getting up at the crack of 9 am, I didn’t make it to work until around 10. »sigh« Totally spent today… Hand clap of praise: I was a good boy and went jogging last night around the subdivision across from my apartment house. Only got chased by one dog, and a little pug at that :-) ...

From the automotive newsletter that I read every Wednesday: Lessons you learn in life Fav quote: Suffice to say, Nadine is my “ex” - the fiery redhead with an equally fiery temper who is comfortable around firearms and who, in a drunken rage, inadvertently shot me, twice, when she found out I was leaving her for Ms. Jolene.

Sleep is such a good thing. And such a bad thing when you’re not getting enough.

Kudos to my wondermous girlfriend who, after hearing about the powerlessness and depression of my team at work, set us a snack basket with 10 pounds of junk food: 3 kinds of pringles, gummy worms, doritos, devil’s food cookies, hard candies, salsa + chips. I asked her if she ordered the “Programmer’s Special” :-) Way to go, honey!

Let’s face it, Morning Drive is a time of extremes for radio listeners in America today: You’re stuck in your car for a few fleet minutes or monotonous hours as you and 10,000 of your closest friends who eschew public transportation wind your way to work. To escape, you flick on your radio and you get the complete spectrum from Howard Stern to Bible-thumping Baptists to Classic Rock. And so much of it is just crap, isn’t it? Most of the Howard Stern wannabes continue to disgust us, and shows like Bob and Tom feature the same tired jokes and made-up group dynamics year after year. NPR is a respite from the canned laughter and naked lesbians, though it seems broadcast from Communist China. ...

Heard complaints lately that the ‘Blog is a real bitter pill to swallow. As in, “Harold, you’re frickin’ depressing, man!” So, my hand-clap of praise for the day: My mom found the watch I “lost”, my Eddie Bauer watch that was a graduation present from my father. Awesomeness! Also, a small report from the autocross at EKU yesterday. Short course, with lots of sweeper elements and good flow. Not very technical. With the low turn-out we had 3 heats with 6 runs apiece. (I would have pics, but Whitney absconded with my Nikon digicam.) ...

What follows is me whining about my job. You’ve been warned. I am so bored with my job. It has a crushing sameness that I cannot escape, and when I do, it seems like the inertia of this corporate black-hole pulls me right back. I’ve done exactly the same job for 3+ years, without much variation nor change in skill set. Got a new machine yesterday, and tried to go against the grain and install SuSE Linux 9.1 on it. Well, because genius me ordered it with a windows-only hard drive controller (Promise FastTrack…don’t go anywhere near it, people!) I couldn’t get it to work. ...

Submitted for your approval: Godzilla, the 1998 remake of the 1954 monster-movie classic. It was awful…I somehow avoided seeing this disaster during the summer between my Freshman & Sophomore year of college, but I thought, “I’ve got Netflix, so why not?” In any case, I can now join in the complaints about this movie that promised so much, but delivered so little. My main problem with the film is its unoriginality: In changing nearly everything about the classic Godzilla, you’d think they’d come-up with some original stuff. Instead, you see stolen bits from other movies here: The eggs in Madison Square Garden, reminiscent of “Aliens”, the desperate escape from young that they lifted wholesale from “Jurassic Park”. And why is it raining the WHOLE TIME? I felt sorry for Matthew Broderick having to endure 6 weeks of shooting under rain machines. ...

Random Slashdot quip of the day :D Slashdot | Can Your Car Get 1,700 MPG?: “I’m not impressed. The Spanish in the 15th century in their voyages to the New World and back were getting thousands of miles per galleon.”

The Autocross Yes, that’s a Ford Festiva with a motor-swap. Last Sunday was my first autocross with the Cincinnati Sports Car Club, also known as The Guys Who want to Autocross, but Can’t Follow the Rules. Basically, this is a parallel group to the Cincy Region of SCCA, but they do their own thing at the deathtrap of a site known as Scarlett Oaks. The site’s on the northside of Cincy, just East of I-75 on I-275. There’s no way SCCA’d allow an event there: The course cuts between buildings, beside big ditches, and it’s rimmed with 3" concrete curbs. You get off-line, you kill your car. (On the bright side, LOTS of good accident stories while you’re in grid.) ...

It was a fun, exciting, and tiring weekend for me. Saturday saw Whitney, Joey, and I head up in the Green Dragon to Joe Huber Family Farm, just north of Louisville in Starlight, Indiana. Huber’s is a Louisvillian tradition, apparently, though I’d never heard of it. (Gotta say I love the name more than Georgetown’s own Double Stink Hog Farm) Anyway, Joe Huber has invented the best racket since Tom Sawyer himself: He gets thousands of city folk per year to PAY HIM to harvest his own produce. But hey, when in Rome, right? ...

Wonderful site that Joel Jirak just showed me: 2BlowHards. Don’t worry, it’s very Safe For Work (SFW). Everything a blog should be: Incisive, personal, devil-may-care, provocative.

Forgive me…just can’t get enough: - The requirements you give your real estate agent are (in order of importance): 8 car climate controlled garage with an attached shop. Outside parking for 6 cars, a motorhome, a crew cab dualie, a 28’enclosed trailer and a 34’ 5th wheel. 3 phase 220V outlets in the garage for your welder. A grease pit. Convenient to a hazardous waste disposal site. Deaf neighbors. Across the street from a paint and body shop. Some sort of house with a working toilet and shower on the property somewhere -or- hookups for the motorhome. ROFL!

LOL!! THIS IS ME! I particularly like: - Your email address refers to your race car rather than to you. - You have car parts in your cubicle at work. - After your answer to “What did you do this weekend?” the next question is always: “And you do this for fun? Right?” - Your first date involves asking her to crew for you. - A neighbor asks if you have any oil, to which you query, “Synthetic or organic?” and they reply, “Vegetable or corn.” - Everywhere you go, you try to find the fastest line through the turn. - You always do a toe & heel downshift while whoever might be your passenger gives you a real funny look.

viz \Viz\, adv. [Contr. fr. videlicet.] To wit; that is; namely. [Try Merriam-Webster Unabridged.] Source: Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc. I always thought viz. was short for ‘vis-a-vis’, but I was totally wrong. My guys in India use this abbreviation all the time, and for like 2 years I had no idea what they meant.

From Slashdot: when the economy is good treat your company with the level of loyalty and respect that they showed to you. This is typical American neurotic thinking (I’m American too, I’m not trying to flame you here). Loyalty is to other people. Respect is something you show other people. It is nonsense to be “loyal” to a company, or to “respect” a company. This idea is simply American corporate brainwashing. ...

“All your base are belong to us!”

The next trip has been (re)scheduled: Whitney and I will be heading to Rocky Mountain Nat’l Park via a non-stop Frontier Airlines flight from Indianapolis to Denver on August 25th, returning August 29th. I’m looking forward to it greatly…getting to be Out West again, if only for a few days, at altitude, enjoying nature. I really liked Colorado on my abbreviated trip through in 2000, and I think I’ll enjoy spending more time there, visiting some sights, my lady Love in tow :-)

>>sigh« I have no idea why today feels like such a bad day, but it just…does. I’m not sure if there’s some conspiracy against IM traffic here at work, but neither Trillian nor MSN Messenger will connect through our firewall. I’ve always predicted they’d block ’em, but it would seem they’re finally following through. I just feel unmotivated somehow, which is not a very good feeling. Guess it’s just the wear and tear from running all weekend from Louisville to Jackson and back. Did very much enjoy it, though. :-D

Well, it’s official: Kerry/Edwards ‘04 is off and running. Meh. Best suggestion I’ve heard all day: “Why doesn’t Cheney resign and let John McCain jump on the Republican ticket.” Heck yeah! Remove the greatest objection to the Bush/Cheney ticket (Cheney’s corporate connections + general creepiness), then add the most compelling Republican since Ronald Reagan. Makes sense to me…