… or that the rate of posting is expected to change much, but I’ll be attending the WorldCon for the next few days. Probably not very heavily, though … I really want to get into my new house.
Archive for the ‘It’s all about me’ Category
Not that anyone will notice
Wednesday, August 6th, 2008Father’s Day activities
Sunday, June 15th, 2008So, my daughter took me out for dim sum this morning, and then to see the new Indiana Jones movie. Silly and stupid, but fun. I do have a slight problem with one of the actors – every time I see his name, I think of this guy. It’s only a resemblance in the sounds of their names, but …
I spent the rest of the day packing – I’ll be moving soon. Not leaving the Denver area, just buying a different house.
President Bush makes graduating (more) fun
Friday, June 6th, 2008Via The Line Is Here, we have photos of President Bush’s appearance as the graduation speaker at the U.S. Air Force Academy.
I wanted to go to the Air Force Academy when I was in high school. My father was career Air Force (enlisted), and I had the idea that I wanted to be a pilot. As things worked out, I went to Annapolis and eventually served on a submarine, but I got to stay in the dorm one weekend when I was part of the contingent that attended an away Navy-Air Force football game. That’s a somewhat-amusing story I haven’t thought of in years; maybe I’ll tell it sometime.
Graduation from a service academy is a pretty exciting occasion. Apart from throwing the hats in the air, which is common to all of the academies, I don’t know what traditions USAFA has concerning graduation. Navy has a number of them, one of them being to give a dollar to the first person who salutes you after you’re commissioned. I still remember Gary Bennett standing up in the middle of the seating area of the field and saluting John Theeuwen. John had selected the Marines as his service option, and the Marines were commissioned first during the ceremony.
Be that as it may, the Daily Mail staff reporter who wrote the article considers it to be “bizarre” behavior on the part of President Bush, but I think it’s great. These young people are celebrating a major accomplishment in their lives, and they’ll have the memories of the president “letting down his hair” and joining in their celebration for the rest of their lives. I’m certain GWB got a kick out of it, too.
The speaker at my graduation was Nelson Rockefeller, who was vice president at the time. I have no distinct memory of anything he said or did at graduation, although I do recall one of my classmates doing a back somersault off the front of the podium. My main memory of “Rocky” himself involve the stories about his death. What is it about New York politicians, anyway?
I need this
Saturday, May 10th, 2008So much, I should probably figure out how to make this post sticky. Or maybe I should just add the link to my blogroll.
In any case, here are Links and Resources for the Chronically Disorganized.
Precipitous local cooling
Friday, May 2nd, 2008I personally believe that “global warming” is hystrionics, and likely politically motivated. I also realize that the plural of anecdote is not “data” (more people should be aware of that, in my opinion).
However, anecdata can be fun. Wednesday, the temperature here in Denver reached 81. Yesterday, we had the following visible from my office:
Those were taken about 8:20am. The snow kept falling until noon, in my area. Today, the mountains are again snow-covered, but the snow here has gone, except on north-facing slopes where it’s been shaded.
Springtime in the Rockies means temperature swingtime in the Rockies, I guess. This really isn’t that unexpected; the average data of last frost in Denver is May 20th.
The weather has been nice this week
Saturday, April 26th, 2008So I was planning to do some garden work today. I’ve got flower beds that need weeding and watering, my lawn needs edging and watering, and there are too many dandelions coming up.
I think I’ll postpone all that, though … it’s snowing.
The Secret of Steel
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008When I was younger, I was interested in blacksmithing. I had found a couple of old books on the subject, reprints of older works. I would visit any blacksmith shop I ran across (which only came out to one or two of them, unfortunately). I would spend time dreaming about where I could find a place that was large enough that I could set up a backyard forge without disturbing the neighbors.
I never did anything about it, and I no longer have the books on the subject, nor do I ever think about it much anymore – I’m getting to the age at which that sort of thing sounds way too hard. I can still indulge my fantasies by watching these, though.
This is what I love about the internet – I keep finding interesting things. Too many to keep track of, unfortunately.
Death and Taxes
Tuesday, April 15th, 2008Well, taxes, anyway. No death in this post, just some things that may make you want to threaten someone with it.
We’ll start with a little humor, though, just to provide better contrast with the rest of the post.
Rachel Lucas has a fine rant on the occasion of paying her taxes. My federal taxes are higher than hers, but I’m fairly certain I make more money than she. Unlike her, I also get to pay state income tax here in Colorado, which pushed my income taxes up to about 25% of my taxable income. Democrats in the Colorado state government are also planning another assault on TABOR, so I expect state taxes to increase more quickly in the near future.
Then I had the additional dubious pleasure of having to submit a 1040X for 2006, because I got sent an erroneous 1099 last year, and a corrected one after I’d submitted my taxes. It meant that I had to send in more money, which was so nice.
Willisms talks about Tax Freedom Day, and also about the taxes we can expect to see in the near future.
That last link is the one most likely to cause what Kim du Toit refers to as an RCOB moment, and it relates to the idea that there really are two Americas. I’m pretty sure I know which one I live in.
Finally, Francis Porretto, the Curmudgeon Emeritus, talks on a related subject in item 3 of this post. More can be found on this topic here.
Then again, maybe the last link should be this.
UPDATE: Physics Geek has a good post, too. And we certainly can’t forget this:
I might have known
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008| HowManyOfMe.com | ||
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It’s not a terribly uncommon name. I’ve never actually met anyone with my name, but I’ve come close. I have a couple of cookbooks on my shelves written by someone with the exact first, middle, and last name I have. When I was a senior in high school, we had a student transfer in whose name was Wheeler Ronald Stevens, which is eerily close to being mine in reverse (my middle name is Robert).
I keep thinking that I should someday write an autobiography for my “about” page that uses the results from a Google search to produce a life history that is more interesting (if totally fanciful) than my own. Given that one of the people who comes up when you search on one of the variants of my name is an ice-skating stage magician, that wouldn’t be hard to do, and might turn out to be quite fascinating.
It’s hard when you wake up choking
Monday, January 28th, 2008I woke up this morning with problems caused by a body part I never expected to trouble me. To tell the truth, the public service spot makes it sound like it’s related to “female troubles,” but it appears to be more widespread than that.
It’s time for bed now, and it appears to be clearing up. I hope it’s gone by morning – it wasn’t a fun way to greet the day.