Otherwise a Good Weekend

Aside from the unfortunate insident described in my last post, it was a pretty good weekend. My manager organizes a big guys-only golf weekend getaway every year and I got to go. Funny thing, my manager didn't get to go himself as he and his wife were expecting to have a baby (she was born just this morning!) and the resort is quite some distance from home.

We got together at the Mille Lacs Golf Resort just south of Garrison, MN on Saturday morning. We had 28 guys this year and I was paired up with Byron, Aman, and Eugene from my group (though Eugene left us to join another guy whose group didn't show up entil late).

I don't golf very much (read: I fumble through a course about once a year), but it was nice to be outside and hang out with a bunch of other guys from work. The weather was perfect too!

We golfed a good 18 holes, but that was about all I could take. I maxed out the score for most of the holes, but I managed to hit the ball straight some of the time (I have a tendency to slice, especially when using a driver).

We had a big poker tournament later that night, but the cards just didn't go my way. Just crappy hand after crappy hand. Not much I could do with it, but I did manage to make it to the second table (we ran 4 tables).

As part of the package, we got coupons for Grand Casino Mille Lacs which allowed you to cash it in for $10 cash, or play one hand of blackjack for a potential winning of $20. I opted for the blackjack. I was dealt a 16 with the dealer showing a 9. I decided to stand, even though there my chances of winning in this situation weren't good. Sure enough, his 9 turned into a 19 which beat me. The next card in the deck, which would have been mine had I hit, was a 4. Oh well.

We were supposed to golf another round today, but we woke up to discover that the weather had take a major turn over night and it was raining pretty hard. You can't golf in that and none of my group are really die-hard golfers, so we decided to just pack it in and head back early rather than try and wait it out.

We got back around 11:30, and since we had to take a vacation day for it anyway, it wasn't really worth going in to work. I went home and slept some more. It was a good weekend.

Stolen

I had my car broken into this weekend. Right in my own building's parking garage. I'm not exactly sure how they did it. There doesn't appear to be any damage to the car or signs of forced entry. I'm not sure if I forgot to lock the door, if the electronic locks just didn't take or what. They didn't take much, but what they did take hurts.

I had a book of about 64 CDs stashed in the passenger-side foot well that they took. That book represented just about my entire CD collection, or at least the part of my CD collection I actually like. They're all gone. Some of them I have literally gone to the other side of the world to get. Others are from small local bands that no longer exist. All gone.

I estimate the value of the CDs to be almost $900. My renter's insurance will help me recover some of the cost of the replacing them, though my policy has a $500 deductible. But it really isn't about the money. Those CDs were like trophies from my travels and experiences all over. They meant a lot to me.

What makes this worse is that this could have been avoided so easily. I knew better than to keep that book in my car, that they could be stolen so easily. I was planning on going away for the weekend and considered taking the book with me back to my apartment to resort. I should have checked to make sure my car was locked. I feel so stupid.

What's strange about it is I had big case of beer (12 bottles of Sam Adams Octoberfest and 6 bottles of Stite Golden Pilsner) in the back seat along with a case of Sierra Mist I was planning to take with me this weekend (future post). Well, they stole the case of Sierra Mist, but didn't touch the beer. Maybe they just didn't recognize the packaging from the unusual beer. More likely it was damn fucking kids who probably will never be able to appreciate what they stole.

The up shot is almost all of the CDs should be replaceable through the magic of Amazon and other Internet sites. A few of them might require a little bit more digging and there's a couple I'm pretty sure I won't be able to replace.

But they took more than just a bunch of CDs and a case of Sierra Mist. I thought my garage was a safe place to keep my things. Even though I always lock my door, I didn't think I had to worry about that kind of stuff. Now I know my home isn't safe. And I can't help now to look at the every other person in my building I pass by as a suspect. I think that's what hurts most.

Smoke!

I went down to check my mailbox today and noticed a rather thick cloud of smoke at the end of one of the hallways in our building down on the first floor. I didn't really know what to make of it, especially noting the seeming lack of concern from the other few residents who wandered by. Had someone just burned a pizza or something? How could that have gotten so thick?

Just then one of the apartment managers wandered by with a couple other people, probably a couple prospective residents being shown the units. I pointed the smoke out to the manager, and she told me to call the police and she hurried back to the main office to report what was happening. I ran back to my apartment (not sure why I didn't just use my cell phone) on the third floor using the stairs, the way you are always taught to when there is a fire in the building. Called 911 and told them it, they sent out a fire truck and told me to pull the fire alarm and get out of the building.

I had never pulled a fire alarm before. We used to have all kind of false alarms in high school and were told how much trouble those people got in for doing it, so I guess it has been ingrained into me NEVER to pull a fire alarm. I met some people on my floor about to go down by the elevator and I told them what was going on. We went down together to the first floor again and the smoke had spread throughout the floor, though not terribly thick. I wanted witnesses I pulled that alarm, I didn't want to get in trouble (though I had always wondered what it felt like to pull one of those things. Now I know.).

I pulled the alarm just by the front door as the first police officer (or maybe she was a fire marshall, I missed the patch on her uniform) was coming in and I told her about it. Slowly other residents started exiting the building too.

It turned out to be a non-issue. Another resident came forward, apparently the smoke had come from his unit and it was in fact just smoke. They let us back in after about 15 minutes.

This would be a pretty much a non-event if it weren't for the fact that our building had had an actual major fire about 2 months ago in which 6 units were completely destroyed and another 10 damaged from smoke and water. I think what I find most disturbing was the lack of concern from other residents about it. I know I wasn't the first to see the smoke (a pizza delivery man was just coming out of that hallway when I pulled the alarm). I'm just as guilty here. I had to be told to call 911 before I did it. Why wasn't that my first reaction?

Maybe it's that old notion of the disbursal of responsibility. I think my first reaction was that if there were really a problem, someone else would have already called the fire department. Right? Therefore, it must not be a real problem. I can let someone else take care of it.

This is a problem.

In any case, nothing left to see here. Crisis averted. Other than a bad smell down on the first floor, it looks like there's no problem. Except my friends who have been jokingly telling me I should buy a house, listing the lack of fires as a chief reason after the big fire a couple months ago. Maybe they are right?

Nintendo's Next Revolution

Here's a first look at the controller for the new Nintendo Revolution, Nintendo's next console system. They've taken a very different approach to the design and it will be interesting to see if they can recapture their old magic with it.

Success!

Well, the reformat and reimaging went off without a hitch. It's actually kind of nice to have a clean computer again. Sure, it's a little annoying to have to reconfigure everything back to the way I had, but this actually allows me to make some improvements to my setup I probably wouldn't have done before. It's like having a new computer. :D

Reformatting the Drive

I got my computer back from Geek Squad today. They couldn't find anything wrong with it except for a few viruses and pieces of spyware, which really didn't surprise me (I've been combating vile spyware like VX2 and Aurora for some time now. They're the reason I switched to Firefox, and you should too.). They wanted a to do a full OS overhaul, but I don't want to pay $200 for that. Instead I'm going to do a reformat myself.

I can't think of anything else I have to back up. I think this is it (that external drive I bought has paid for itself in convenience already). I'm somewhat apprehensive about this, as I've never done a reformat before, but I think I have everything squared away.

Ok, here I go...

Good Beer

I just tried the beer Dave and I brewed. I mentioned it a couple weeks ago. And the verdict:

I'm pleased. I have tried a bottle of the apricot and one of the raspberry and I like them both. I think the beer might be a little young yet though, and I think I am going to give it another week before I try anymore. No sense it drinking it all up before it hits its prime.

Thank You Mr. Newdow

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Computerless

I had to take my computer into Geek Squad yesterday. It started making these really strange noises, like a whirring and a bunch of strange clunks. After a little bit it started running really slow, especially when loading. It would take forever to boot up or shut down and it kept freezing up when I was trying to run Firefox. I thought maybe the harddrive was dying so I went out and bought an external harddrive to back-up all my digital pictures (my computer is the only place some of them exist) and other important files. Then I brought it in last night.

Well, I talked to them today and apparently it passed their harddrive fitness test, but they still had some more tests to run. They haven't called me back yet and they are closing soon, so I'm guessing they won't be done with it until tomorrow. So now I have no idea what the problem is, but it probably won't be cheap. I'm using my work laptop for Internet access at home in the meantime, but I can't play any of my games or anything on it.

This sucks.

"Louisiana is a city that is largely underwater..."

Here's a commentary by MSNBC's Kieth Olbermann in response to a little slip-of-the-tongue by Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff. It is absolutely scathing and should be seen. Here's a sample:

No one is suggesting that mayors or governors in the afflicted areas, nor the federal government, should be able to stop hurricanes. Lord knows, no one is suggesting that we should ever prioritize levee improvement for a below-sea-level city, ahead of $454 million worth of trophy bridges for the politicians of Alaska.

But, nationally, these are leaders who won re-election last year largely by portraying their opponents as incapable of keeping the country safe. These are leaders who regularly pressure the news media in this country to report the reopening of a school or a power station in Iraq, and defies its citizens not to stand up and cheer. Yet they couldn't even keep one school or power station from being devastated by infrastructure collapse in New Orleans — even though the government had heard all the "chatter" from the scientists and city planners and hurricane centers and some group whose purposes the government couldn't quite discern... a group called The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

It goes on, and I have to say it is refreshing to see a journalist say what so many of us have been thinking for so long (and not just about the debacle on the Gulf Coast), and more eloquently than I have heard anyone offer. It's to bad his words will likely be confined to the audience of a cable news channel and the few who happen to stumble upon it on the Net.

The site linked above provides, a Quicktime video, Quicktime audio file, and written transscript.

A Class Act

Kyle Busch, driver of the #5 Kellogg's Chevy in the NASCAR Nextel Cup series, just minutes ago won his first race in the series, becoming the youngest driver to win a Nextel Cup race (he's only 20!). At the end of the race he said to the camera that he is donating his share of the winnings to the Red Cross to help the victims of Katrina (I believe he said Carl Edwards did the same thing last night after winning the Busch race). Now there's some real class acts. This is why I like NASCAR.

I Have Been Found

Looks like the ad spammers have found me and started leaving "comments". I was wondering how long it would take. Luckily I have ways of dealing with them.

Point of reference: I have openned up comments to anyone. But if you are coming here to anonymously post links to laser hair removal, increased Internet traffic, or other purely commercial, nonrelevant products or services, you will be removed.

I'm sure this post makes no difference, since I'm sure those spammers are mostly automated. But if you are reading this, and are planning to use to my comments forums to hock your useless crap, please take your business elsewhere.

But for everyone else, please post any thoughts or comments you feel like. I'd love to hear from you, whether it is positive or negative. Just don't try and sell me anything. :)

Fuel Arrived

Just and update from my last post. Sounds like the fuel arrived so Indictor will continue to post.

Messages From Ground Zero

I found a blog (well, actually I read about it over at Dubious Quality) being kept by a bunch of people who have themselves holed up in a data center in downtown New Orleans. They have kept their servers running with a diesel generator and have been providing constant updates since before Katrina hit the coast. Since then, the author has given a very detailed first-hand account of the chaos going on in the city. It is disturbing and sobering and interesting all at the same time. Unfortunately, it sounds like they may not be posting much longer as their data provider is about to run out of fuel and new diesel shipments have not been coming.

What is going on in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast right now is nothing short of an utter tragedy. I do not understand how things could get as bad as they have. I did not think any part of our country could descend into such a state of desperation and chaos. I am not a religious person, but I ask that you send your prayers to the people stranded there. They need help.

If you feel so compelled, here is also a link to some general advice on giving donation and a list of reputable charities involved in the relief effort.

Touched by His Noodly Appendage

My mom sent me a link to the New York Times story today.

As you may be aware, the Kansas Board of Education is poised to vote and pass a measure that would require theory of intelligent design to be taught along side the theory of evolution in Kansas public school classrooms. There are many different theories of intelligent design, however, and it would only be fair to give equal time to all of them.

Theories like the one discovered by Bobby Henderson who granted with a vision that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. In an open letter to the Kansas Board of Education posted on his website, venganza.org, Bobby lays out the tenets of the Flying Spaghetti Monster creation story, or Pastafarianism as it has come to be called. There is indisputable evidence that the Flying Spaghetti Monster created humans in his image (ever notice how the human brain looks like a big lump of spaghetti?), and an undeniable correlation between global warming and the worldwide decline in the number of pirates, the Flying Spaghetti Monster's chosen people.

With 10 million followers, the Flying Spaghetti Monster deserves just as much time in the classroom as any other intelligent design theory. It is important that the students of Kansas learn of the divine of power of His noodly appendage as they learn about all intelligent design theories. Spread the Good Word.