The house a few houses down from us just went on the market for $280k. Yowsers. That's waay more than what we paid for our place, and even more than what the place next door went for last year. Kinda makes me wonder how much our place would go for now.
With the three runoff ponds up the street from us, there are a lot of frogs hopping around. With all the cars around, that also means that on any given day there are probably a few flattened frog corpses lying on the road too. Now that it's getting hot out, those flattened frog carcasses bake out in the sun and turn into what Mike calls frog jerky (a very fitting description). Like Mike's dog, Nala seems to love going after frog jerky. Fortunately for us, we've managed to catch her before she can chomp down too much on them. No puked up frog bits from Nala. Of course that doesn't mean she hasn't puked up other things. Mostly it's bits of chewed up sticks we find. Invariably she waits until she's on some nice absorbent carpet before starting off with that characteristic huffing sound that says she's about to spew. What is it about dogs that makes them chew and eat things that inevitably wind up coming back up again?
This makes wonder about other dog things too.
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It was a bright sunny afternoon with most of us lying around either up on top of the houseboat or down below in a pleasant state of drunkeness. Some of the guys were out tooling around on rented jet skis. Suddenly we were all jolted out of our drunken reverie by a loud WHAAAAMMMMM! We went over to the side to see what hit us, and there in the water was a disabled jet ski and Scott floating in the water with a large red welt on his back. Strangely enough he seemed more concerned that he couldn't get the rented jet ski started back up again and how he was going to explain it to the rental place.
Later we learned he was out on the water spinning donuts a little too close to the houseboat and spun himself into the end of the houseboat pontoon. You could even see the marks left by the bolts in the large bruise on his back. He may not have been feeling any pain at the time, but he was sure feeling it later on in the day.
One thing I always try to do is never be in a rush to get somewhere. Whenever you're in a rush, invariably something goes wrong that delays you, so you end up having to rush even more. Traffic is too slow, there's an accident slowing things down, all the stop lights are conspiring against you. Stuff like that. It just gets really aggravating, frustrating and stressful, and it's easy stress to avoid too. I figure what's the point in rushing. I'm going to get there anyway. If I'm a little bit late, I'm a little late. I think I'd rather just be a little bit late than get pulled over for speeding or get into an accident.
Today, I wasn't in a rush but the wife was to get to an appointment. So what happened? I start pulling out of the garage and hear a funny noise. I get out to see what's going on discover that one of the front tires is flat. Pretty much blows any chance of the wife getting to her appointment, so she had to call and reschedule while I busted out the jack and spare tire to replace the flat. Good thing we bought that air compressor last year too, because the spare was a little low on air. 30 minutes later, the flat tire's in the trunk and the spare is on and filled up. Off we go to drop her off at work.
Well, it looks like I needed a couple of new tires anyway, which means a trip to Sears after the weekend.
Lots to do this weekend and it all involves dogs.
First up on Saturday morning is the Charleston Dog Show downtown along with the Farmer's Market. Farmer's Market is always a fun place to take Nala. Add in the dog show and it's madness. Much fun though. Just watch your step.
Then we rush out to a spring picnic hosted by the local lab retriever club for more fun with even more dogs. Just labs this time though.
Today we had a fun day at the park with mom, dad and that bratty brother of mine. I got to have more fun though, because he's still too little and had to stay cooped up in his crate. Nyah nyah nyah.
We went to that park downtown where all the people go to buy stuff from other people under tents. There were lots of dogs there today which made it especially fun.
First dad entered me in this contest and made me walk up and down in front of some people who kept looking at me.
I didn't win anything, but dad was still happy anyway.
Then we walked around to check out everything. We saw lots of neat looking dogs. There were big dogs
and really little dogs
a really drooly dog
and a bunch of dogs like me
We even saw another dog trying to get donations to help other greyhounds get nice homes with people.
After that we went to another party with all kinds of other dogs like me. The best part was getting to swim and play in the water! There were all kinds of fun things to do like running into the water to grab things. One contest was to see who could jump into the water the best.
Another contest was to see who could bring the toy back fastest. I got third place in that one! It was fun!
Then everyone got to go in at the same time and play.
Even that silly brother of mine got into the water to play. He did pretty good for going swimming for the first time.
A pretty cool day.
Well, this is an interesting twist on GoogleMaps. ASCII Maps gives you GoogleMaps in ASCII characters. See your favourite places rendered in text!
Google Maps in ASCII characters. Pure silliness for your enjoyment
Yesterday I finally found a few spare moments to go ahead and start upgrading my Fedora Core 4 box to Fedora Core 5. I don't know if it's because I'm doing the upgrade instead of the new installation, but it's still going this morning. Granted there was the 12 hour break between going home and coming back to work, so all together I'd say the upgrade process has taken about 7 hours so far, and I'm only on disk 4 of 5.
Each time a new CD goes in, the installer spends a good long time (maybe an hour or so?) doing this 'Preparing transaction from installation source' thing before it gets to actually installing any of the packages. Not quite sure what's going on during this time, but there's a heck of a lot of disk activity happening. Maybe it's just this computer...
I figure at this rate the upgrade should be finished by the time I go home today and I'll be able to start messing with FC5 tomorrow.
It was a year ago today that we closed on our house. Time just flies doesn't it. We had barely moved in before starting to tear things out, most noticably the carpet in the three rooms. We were planning on doing the rest of the living room this summer, but that may not end up happening until later on in the year depending on the cash flow situation.
In the meantime, we have actual patches of real grass starting to grow in the back yard! The sod in the front yard is starting to look a little on the patchy side though, so I think I'll have to do something about that soon.
The rest of the house is cruising along nicely. No major breakdowns or flaws that I've seen or noticed. At the moment, the two projects we have in the near future are extending the patio out back and maybe laying down some sod on the side of the house where all the sand was left over from construction.
After meeting lots of dog owners over the past year, I think one of the distinguishing characteristics of a dedicated dog lover is how much they end up talking about poop.
Well, after going through the 40lb bag of Nutro NC Lamb & Rice, we're back to Diamond. Nala and Simba were both doing pretty well on the Nutro. Their coats looked good, dogs looked good, Nala's weight stayed good and Simba packed on almost 10 pounds in 3 weeks. The only problem with the Nutro was that there was so much poop! With just one dog, I supposed I could have lived with it and we probably would have stayed on Nutro. With two dogs, it was just getting to be a little much and a little too stinky in the back yard.
So we decided to go back to what worked the first time. Nala's on the adult Diamond L&R, and Simba's on the LB Puppy L&R. It's been about a week now, and the decrease in the amount of poop is definitely noticable. Just finished the transition phase, so I'll be keeping an eye on both of them to see how they handle things.
Only a few more weeks to go before this year's hurricane season starts. Time to start freshening up the storm kit I guess.
This year's storm names are:
Alberto, Beryl, Chris, Debby, Ernesto, Florence, Gordon, Helene, Isaac, Joyce, Kirk, Leslie, Michael, Nadine, Oscar, Patty, Rafael, Sandy, Tony, Valerie, William
Yesterday's blog party was a lot of fun with a pretty good turnout of interesting people to meet and chat with (and with surprisingly little geek speak!). I think everyone had a good time, so hopefully more of these will be scheduled later.
I got there a few minutes late because of the train
The flag at the SC Aquarium was lowered to half-mast, but nobody knew who had died.
Dan Conover, one of the masterminds of the operation was one of the first people I met.
One of the great things about Toucan Reef is the view of the new Cooper River bridge
This is part of the old bridge stuck in the mud
Attendance was pretty good with a much more diverse crowd than I had expected
Joan from Walk This Way even managed to get us some schwag for the party
Mustang Rolling brought his car along
so everyone headed over to pose with it
I didn't get a group picture, but everyone else did.
Vera from Vera's Crafty Blog showed off some of her work
Everyone enjoyed the tasty food at Toucan Reef and everyone else's company
Sunset treated us to a cool view of the bridge and the Yorktown
Check out the rest of the pictures here
A couple of my favourites from Winnie the Pooh
For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and Long Words Bother Me - Winnie the Pooh
Owl, you and I have brains. The others have fluff. - Rabbit
It's graduation day today. The past week or so, the groundskeepers have been busy spiffying the campus up in preparation for bigwigs, high muckity-mucks, graduating medical professionals and their families. And today, hundreds of former medical, dental, nursing, pharmacy and other allied health students will finish the first part of their training and disperse out into the world to continue the rest of their education. Med students (now 'doctors') get blown about by The Match while the rest get to fend for themselves to secure their places in the workforce or other post-graduate training.
Good luck to all of them!
There are a bunch of interesting blogs in TBB that I'd like to add to my FeedReader list, but a good chunk of them are hosted on Blogspot/Blogger and have no links to RSS feeds though. I know I've seen Blogger blogs with RSS feeds, so I'm sure the feature's there. Turn it on people! Let me aggregate you!
Hmm, that sounded wierd didn't it...
Update: Oh, apparently RSS feeds is a Pro feature. Too bad.
Anybody from my high school class here? ME LaZerte Class of 1987?
Our fellow classmate Jackie Middleton has offered to help put together a 20 year reunion! From her posting to Classmates.com, she says
I am willing to plan a 20year reunion. Looking for people interested in being part of a committee. Reunion would probably take place in the Spring of 2007. Please contact me at melazertereunion1987 at hot mail dot com to volunteer or offer suggestions. If you know of fellow graduates who are not part of Classmates please pass this message on or send me their contact details.
Thanks!
Jackie Middleton
I have a new scent, Eau de BBQ.
Our catering services were called upon this weekend for my brother-in-law's birthday party. 12 pounds of ground chuck and 4 pounds of ground turkey were turned into burgers and then grilled along with about 4 pounds of hot dogs and sausages, and around 10 pounds of ribs. 3 hours of grilling later (he needs a bigger grill if he's going to keep having parties like this) I was smoked like bacon. I'm sure I wasn't quite as tasty though. Two days and 4 hair washings later, my hair still smells like hickory smoke.
I think people found the food tasty though. For a while the burgers were going off the table as fast as I could get them off the grill.
The dogs had a good time out there too
Post #1000! And all before this blog turns 3 too.
One thing Nala's become really good at is finding and tracking insects inside the house. It's easy to tell when she's got one in her sights too. I'll walk into a room and see her staring really, really hard at something. Sure enough, there's a bug under her nose that she's sniffing at. It's really kind of amusing, the way she gets with bugs.
The other day I walked into the kitchen and saw her staring at something just below the counter. I walked over to see what she was looking at and this huge moth flew up into the air and started banging against the ceiling and walls trying to get out. Finally managed to capture it when it landed on one of the plants, and released it safely outside.
This morning I spotted her crouched down staring at something at the base of the dishwasher. Found a little tiny cricket she had cornered.
Look out bugs!
NHC's 2006 hurricane forecast came out a couple of hours ago, and they're calling for a busy Atlantic season. NHC is forecasting 13-16 named storms this year with 8-10 hurricanes, 4-6 of them major
One thing we need to add to our hurricane kit is stuff for the dogs. Need to do some research to see what needs to go in their kit. The ASPCA website has some good tips on emergency pet preparedness
From the NOAA press release:
Warmer ocean water combined with lower wind shear, weaker easterly trade winds, and a more favorable wind pattern in the mid-levels of the atmosphere are the factors that collectively will favor the development of storms in greater numbers and to greater intensity. Warm water is the energy source for storms while favorable wind patterns limit the wind shear that can tear apart a storm's building cloud structure.This confluence of conditions in the ocean and atmosphere is strongly related to a climate pattern known as the multi-decadal signal, which has been in place since 1995. Since then, nine of the last 11 hurricane seasons have been above normal, with only two below-normal seasons during the El Niño years of 1997 and 2002.
Someone stumbled on my blog and emailed me this
One note: there is some debate as to whether South Carolina is "the deep south", "the old south", or both. More info:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_South
As a native Georgian and former Charlestonian, I have always understood that the Deep South referred to the post-cotton-gin regions of the south -- where there are vast, seemingly endless plantations fields (Alabama, Mississippi, Louisianna, and Arkansas).
A good book on the subtle differences between "deep" and "new" and how they've affected modern life in the South's major cities is "New Men, New Cities, New South".
I thought it was interesting. As someone 'from off' (as they say around here), 'Deep South' was the only term I had encountered, and from what I had gathered, referred to mostly the southeastern US (why not the rest of the southern US, I could never figure out). I always thought it was just a geographical term, but Wikipedia's Deep South and Old South entries would imply a historical and cultural distinction between the two terms.
Maybe some of you local readers can help educate a foreigner :)
Well, everyone else is doing it, so what the heck.
There is one other thing I like. Being able to send pictures like this of us hanging out on the beach on New Year's Day to my friends buried in the snow back home. Is that a mean thing to do?
Not too wild about the summer heat, but that's another list.
The rest of the list is much much longer, but just listing these made me tired.
MUSC's Hurricane Awareness Day is going on in the Horseshoe today until 2PM. I think it's targeted mostly towards employees and students, but I'm sure they won't notice a few neighbours walking through. Lots of cool stuff to see, and you can even go meet Rob Fowler from Channel 2. I saw Sticky Fingers setting up to serve lunch, so grab some BBQ and learn how to get ready for storm season.
Ooops, I seem to have managed to totally bork my individual entry archives. Since that's also where the comment form is, no comments until I get this fixed.
I *did* have redoing the templates on my list of things to do...maybe this will be as good a time as any to do that.
Update: Ok, I think things are fixed now...
Ok, fresh new design (actually one of MT's standard StyleCatcher templates) and updated templates. Having a weird issue in the individual entry archives. For some reason the MTComment tag will only show one comment even if there are more.
Very puzzling. I'm thinking maybe it has something to do with dynamic publishing. I'll have to spend some time digging into it later.
Update: Cool, I seem to have fixed the problem by upgrading the Smarty bundled with MT3.2 to the latest version. At least I think that's what fixed it...
A good speech has a beginning, an end and no middle - D Wilson, teacher
This one comes from one of my high school math teachers who gave an address at our commencement. It's something I always try to keep in mind when I have to give talks and presentations.
MT 3.3 will be going into open beta soon (next week) and it looks like there are a lot of changes that should make blogging life easier for non-techies.
I shall be looking forward to seeing a more comprehensive changelog for 3.3 and kicking it's wheels soon.
Went to see X-Men 3 last night. While my feelings were mixed, overall I enjoyed the movie. It was mostly non-stop action with plenty of CG effects. Those who are easily offended by deviations from the established canon will probably be better off skipping this movie because there are alot of them, and some of them are pretty major.
Lots of new characters that should be familliar to X-Men fans are introduced although not in any meaningful role. They appear more as cameos than anything else which left me wanting more. It was like the writers were trying to say to X-Men fans, "Look at these characters from the comic. See, we've actually read it, but what do we do with them?"
The Good
The Bad
Stick around for the end of the credits
3.5 stars out of 5.
