Tuesday - September 2, 2008
Campus Watch #50
From today's Campus Watch crime report:
200 East 24th Street
Leaving the Scene Collision: A parked and unattended silver 2004 Honda was struck in the left quarter panel. The driver of the striking vehicle did not leave identifying information. At the time of the report, a 1988 Honda was found parked to the left of the struck vehicle. The 1988 Honda had fresh damage to its right front quarter panel. The damage to the 1988 Honda matched in height, extent of damage and paint color transfer to the damage on the 2004 Honda. We in law enforcement call this a clue. The owner of the 1988 Honda did not recall striking the 2004 Honda, but could not account for the fresh damage on his vehicle. Reported on 08/29/08 at 3:20 p.m.
"We in law enforcement call this a clue." Heh heh. You don't suppose the driver of the 1988 Honda was somehow "impaired" when he parked said Honda...do you?
Tuesday - August 26, 2008
One more time
I was working on some Powerpoint slides a few minutes ago when my iPod decided to insert itself into my consciousness. It played "Crazy Love" by Brian McNight. Why do I even have a version of that song by him? It must've come off a compilation or soundtrack or something. It's a nice enough version of the song but I really have no idea where I got it.
... Insert pause while I look into the situation ...
Okay. I'm back. It's from a compilation I must've bought a few years ago (release date 2000) called "Heart of Soul" (Amazon link). Now that is an entertaining collection of songs. In more ways than one. 'Wonder why I bought it?
Anyway.
As soon as the song finished, my iPod presented me with "Crazy Love" by Lacy J. Dalton. Same song. Drastically different version. Heh heh.
And, I remembered that this had happened to me before. So, I went looking. Yep: last September. I ended up having four versions of "I Walk the Line" back then. I just looked through my iPod and found that I have three versions of "Crazy Love"...the two I already mentioned and one by Ray Charles with Van Morrison. Cool.
PS: Happy Birthday, Dad. Remakes of songs apparently prompt me to post on or near one of my parents' birthday. Odd coinky-dink, that.
Friday - August 22, 2008
Quick note
On the off-chance that you haven't noticed: I went off to NM on vacation a couple of weeks ago. And, I've been posting photos from the trip to my Photobox page. I've managed to post at least one photo a day. Now, of course, since I had to go and point it out, I'll probably stop dead in my tracks. That does seem to be the way things generally go 'round here. Right? Right. So sad. But, so true. Tsk tsk tsk.
Wednesday - August 6, 2008
Now blogified
For those that haven't noticed, I finally blogified the main page. I went live with it on Sunday night. And, then waited. To see who would notice first. Or, at any rate, who would say something to me first...which is very likely pretty much the same thing. Heh. Anyway, my money was on Mom. But, Kate was the first one to notice. Sort of. We were on the phone this afternoon and she looked at the page, trying to find the Plumbago photo on my Photobox. The moment she opened my page, she commented that it looked different and she couldn't find the Photobox link. Heh. She didn't know what was different...just that something was different. So, I told her about setting things up using Movable Type so the archives and all would be archived automatically. Making my life easier. Then, Mom sent a note later this afternoon thanking me for switching so she could read in her newsreader. So, I'm giving half a point to each of them. Katie gets half a point for noticing there'd been a change and Mom gets half a point for understanding the change. What they can do with those half points is beyond me.
A note about the change. I did my best to keep the general feel of the page the same. And, I spent way too much time between Friday and Sunday moving all the old content into the Movable Type database. Almost everything was moved over. There were a few posts that made no sense so they didn't survive the switch. I'd linked to something and made a comment that no longer had any context. In those cases, the link was dead and the comment gave little clue to as to why I'd linked. So, I ended up ditching those posts...there were only two or three of 'em. It was funny to me to see the ruts I got into.
So, welcome. And, let me know if you notice anything that doesn't work or doesn't make sense.
Oh. One more thing. No comments. That's a deliberate choice on my part. This is a personal page. I rarely post anything that warrants a comment. Feel free to drop me a line if you want to say something to me about something I post. My email address appears at the bottom of every post (click on my name) and is at the top of the right-hand column on the main page. My photo and baseball blogs are much more likely to warrant comments from time to time (especially the baseball blog) but, quite frankly, I'm not much interested in "fostering community" or carrying on a conversation here. Nor do I have the energy to monitor a comment section. So, no comments.
Onward.
Svensto
Here's a great new blog: ..svensto..
It's the story of a woman who emigrated to the US from Sweden in 1938. There are only a few entries so far. But it's already quite a tale. Start from the first entry and see if you don't want more by the time you get to the end.
Friday - August 1, 2008
Gold box deals
Do you ever look at the Gold Box deals at Amazon? I do. Fairly obsessively. Once or twice a month I find something worthwhile. That's not really what I'm writing about today, though. If you go to the Gold Box page and scroll down, you'll see "Quick Picks" selected "just for you." I'm under no illusions about these things. I realize, they're things Amazon is discounting for a reason. But, supposedly, these are things that aren't additionally discounted for everyone else. They usually have a very small (less than 5%?) discount associated with them and the note about them says they're only available for the next hour (hour from what?...I'm not sure...because they seem to be available all day long). Usually, there are items from my wish list...or perhaps items very closely related to my wish list or purchase history. Say, a photography book if I recently purchased something for my camera. Or a CD that's not currently on my wish list but is by an artist I have on my wish list. Stuff like that. Today, though:
I've never purchased anything remotely resembling any of these things (well, I have purchased software but never anything for Windows). And, there's nothing like these on my wish list. And, I cannot remember browsing around the Amazon site looking at things like these. That's all of the items, as well. Usually, there are at least 6 or 7 items listed. Does Amazon just have a huge inventory of grills and trash hideaways? It just struck me as odd...odd that there was nothing on the list actually having anything to do with me. On "my" special discount list. Ah well...
Wednesday - July 30, 2008
Campus Watch #49
From today's Campus Watch crime report:
Trinity Parking Garage (1815 Trinity Ave.)
Burglary of Motor Vehicle / Criminal Mischief / Evading: A UT police officer discovered a non-UT subject attempting to gain entrance into a red Dodge truck that was parked on the 3rd level of the garage. When the suspect saw the officer, he took off running. According to several witnesses, the suspect used "cat-like reflexes" and jumped from the 2nd level to the ground level and continued running. With the speed of a gazelle, the officer gave chase and was able to take the suspect into custody. During the investigation, the officer soon learned that the suspect had burglarized a tan Kia and had removed an iPod mini. The suspect was charged with Burglary of Motor Vehicle / Criminal Mischief / Evading after being transported to Central Booking. Occurred on: 7-29-08, at 9:30 AM.
The "cat-like reflexes" thing made me laugh. Several witnesses reported "cat-like relexes"...several of them. Heh heh. And, then the officer was quick like a gazelle. Oh my. Sorry I missed it all.
Tuesday - July 29, 2008
Uninsured drivers
This is not good news: "25.5 percent of 5,012 drivers stopped in Travis County and small portions of nearby Williamson and Hays counties since June 2, didn't have auto insurance." That won't help the "uninsured driver" portion of your premium go down, will it? Years ago, I sat on a compensation committee at work. Many of the folks on that committee argued that our health benefits should count as salary when compared to comparable jobs around town that had no health benefits because "the people in those jobs" (and we were talking about the lowest end of the pay scale) "were having to pay their insurance premiums out of their own pockets." I argued that those people were not, in fact, paying for health insurance. "They're not????" came the incredulous response. Um, no. They're hoping they don't need health insurance and when they end up needing medical care, they go to free clinics and the emergency room. I bet those same committee members would be equally dumbfounded to discover that 1-in-4 cars next to them on the freeway aren't properly insured. I'm not. People just hope they don't get caught. And, for the most part, they don't get caught. While the rest of us pay.
By the way, I do realize that the 1-in-4 number is probably higher than the actual number of uninsured drivers. People who get stopped for some sort of moving violation are probably more likely to be uninsured than folks who go along obeying all the other laws of the road (speed limits and what not). Still. That's a lot of people driving around without insurance. Sigh...
