The Smallest Minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. – Ayn Rand
The first leg of the journey is complete. We’re in Quebec City, in our hotel rooms. It’s 7:45 and pizza is on the way. At both ends of the flight we didn’t bother to put our jackets on (it’s about 18ºF).
I think I’ve acclimated somewhat.
Tomorrow we fly out of Quebec for Chicago, then to Phoenix, and then the two hour drive home.
Oh, wait – it’s Phoenix. The three hour drive home.
Regular blogging will resume shortly. Please pardon the free ice cream interruption.
I leave for Upper Cryogenica at Oh-My-God:30 tomorrow morning, and I’ll be traveling all day (we arrive at 10:30PM local time). I have no idea what internet access will be like at the hotel. I may be unable to post for the next few days. The free ice cream* may be in short supply for a bit. Sorry.
*But it’ll be damned hard ice cream.
I got to work today at my standard 6:30AM starting time. (Normal work-week is 7-4:30 M-Th, 7-11 on Friday. I generally work 6:30-5:00 M-Th, 6:30-11:30 on Friday.) At 9:30 AM we started a vendor meeting. I didn’t get out of it until 5:30. We even had lunch delivered and kept on working.
I’m burned out. No blog for you.
Work and allergies are kicking my @$$. I get up tired, and I come home tired, and blogging is suffering thereby. I’ve added to the upcoming Überpost, but it’s still a long way from finished. (Remember when I said that James couldn’t be a better opponent? How little did I understand how right I was. But the consequence of that is the sheer volume of stuff I have to work through and the research I have to do.)
Anyway, don’t expect to see much here for a bit. The free ice cream machine is on the fritz. Again.
Sorry, y’all, but I have to travel on business, and I’m going to be in central Mexico for the next seven days. Those days promise to run about 12-13 hours, and I suspect I’m going to have neither the time nor the inclination to write much after work. I’ll be lucky to keep up with the blogs I follow daily.
I’ve got to get up at 4:00 tomorrow to get to the airport by 5:30 to catch the 7-passenger plane to the job site, so tonight I’ve got to pack and get to bed early.
Later, everyone.
Today’s Free Ice Cream
According to the October, 2009 issue of InTech magazine, the trade journal of the International Society of Automation:
The cost of manufacturing money in the U.S. has increased. It costs 1.38 cents to manufacture a penny. To make a five-cent nickel, it cost[sic] 8.83 cents. The extra change is not for the machinery and is not because the value of the dollar is down. A penny is made of copper-plated zinc. Since 2003, copper is up 300%, and zinc is up 450%. Pennies have a zinc core and copper plating. Nickels are a copper-nickel alloy.
Pretty soon, if the Treasury keeps printing money, it’ll cost more than a dollar to print a dollar.
Just Another Busy Week
Posting again promises to be slow. Sorry ’bout that, but the free ice cream machine is on the fritz!
I’m Conflicted.
There are a lot of things I ought to be writing about. Things I feel I need to write about. Unfortunately, this need comes up against two opponents – I have a lot of things I need to do that do not involve sitting on my ass in front of my computer, and I have developed another case of ennui, where I do not particularly want to sit and write for hours, or even minutes. Thus, instead of my trademark long, rambling essays, you’ve recently been receiving Free Ice-Cream Lite in the form of Quotes of the Day, videos and cartoons.
Still, there’s half a dozen (or more) things a day that poke at me, insisting that I write something about them just to get them out of my system. For example, here’s a case of EPIC FAILURE:
Witchcraft rumor sparks riot at Congo soccer game
KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Accusations that a soccer player was using witchcraft during a match in eastern Congo sparked a riot that killed 13 people, a U.N.-funded radio station reported Monday.
Most of the victims were between the ages of 11 and 16, Radio Okapi said. They were suffocated as panicked crowds ran for the exits during the mayhem Sunday in Butembo in eastern Congo’s North Kivu province.
Charming, but not Epic Fail. This is the Epic Fail:
Radio Okapi said police tried to control the violence at Matokeo stadium by firing into the air to protect their commander, who was hit in the head and wounded by fans.
Now, this is an AP story, so I expect to receive a lawsuit for having linked to it and quoted from it, but the interesting thing is that between the time I first read it (and emailed it home so I could write about it) and now, when I opened the story to do the pullquotes, the AP has revised it. The revision? The original story reported that the soldiers fired into the air “to calm the rioters” (no mention of defending the commander), which then sent them into an even greater panic.
Got a angry riot on your hands? Try full-auto fire into the air! That’ll calm ’em down!
Next up, the Nigerian scammers have apparently switched tactics. No longer has some rich dude died, leaving million$ in an account somewhere that needs to be moved. No, now apparently I have won a lottery that I didn’t even enter!
Your E-mail Address was selected online and has won you $2,000,000.00 in the lucky day lotto NL world-wide.Write to agent E-mail: [email protected]
contact the claim agent Mr.Pieter Vaart,Win no: 442/121/909, Ticket no:al-4343/132/001, our phone No:0031-6111- 464-78,Regard,Mrs,I.versloot,Award co-ordinator.
Nice, Dutch-sounding names, right? And if you can’t trust the Dutch, who can you trust? The originating email address is [email protected]. Is Idi Amin still alive and living in exile in Italy? If so, why did no one tell me?
Sorry, Mrs,I.versloot,Award co-ordinator, I think I’ll pass on your truly generous offer.
Now, I’m going to generate one more post after this, look up something for tomorrow’s Quote of the Day, and then get to work on some things I really, really need to do around the house.
NO BLOG FOR YOU!
I’m up in Tempe, AZ on a project for a couple of days. Won’t be much in the way of blogging going on while I’m up here. Sorry. New visitors are invited to peruse the “Best Posts” on the left sidebar
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over there, and old visitors are invited to peruse the archives.
You kids! Off the lawn!!
I Talk Up Haloscan…
…and then it goes TU on me.
Oh well. First time in a while. Nothing is 100% reliable, it seems.
UPDATE: Comments are back online! That was fast!
UPDATE to the UPDATE: Nope, not quite there yet.