blivet 2.0

Happy Halloween/Samhain! The Wild Hunt passed us by. Got bonfire?

We ended up with 120 little ghouls, goblins, teletubbies, princesses, and fairies tonight, down from the 145 or so of last year. There weren’t as many boys without costumes that needed to shave as last year either. We didn’t run out of candy which was good, but there is very little surplus to lay around the house like little fat-bombs which is even better. The Hogwarts poster in the window was a big hit for several of the kids. I wanted to tell them to come back if they want some more good books to read.

I hope your head cold gets better Sheila.

Craig, you always have a great constellation of new links. Just so you know that more of us are noticing than are mentioning, not for a linkback. You do a fantastic job! I continue to be impressed daily with your quotes with pictures.

I’m not neglecting the rest of you, at least I hope you don’t take it that way. The Links link (over there on the left) gets exersized daily. There is just too much to mention in the time I’ve alotted my self for tonight.

I have no idea when teachers stopped teaching ‘right from wrong’ and started being ‘advisors’ John. We got it constantly through school, especially the first eight years or so. I think thats what kept it from becoming The Lord of the Flies.

Yes, I am ignoring my self-imposed hiatus late tonight. Bad Hal!
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Happy Birthday Tom.

A belated public congratulation to garret and sandra on the new domicile and acreage. And a belated public Happy Birthday to Sandra.

I’m glad you’re back to regular duty Al.

We put a three-inch thick compliance report out the door yesterday after the usual 11th hour fire-drill that accompanies such endavors. 25 press-ready geo-referenced maps in .pdf format on the accompanying CD, several dozen other graphics, waaaay too many words. All woven together in the delicate manner that only Microsoft Word can provide. heh! I think my eyes are still crossed. However I can now discourse at length on the history of water in the Colorado River Basin. Too bad Cadillac Desert has already been written (he was a better writer too). All that to frame the discussion of how several large (96 inch) laterals affected the archaeology as they traverse the Las Vegas Valley. Remember, I ultimately work for the Water District …

Not quite current stuff I wanted to note:

[Discovery] Coal Sludge Causes Environmental Disaster. This happened on October 11, and I have yet to hear anything about this in the mainstream media. It has been compared to “an inland Exxon Valdez“. The only reason I had heard about it was because John VanDyk at View From an Iowa Homestead mentioned it on the 24th.

[Reuters] “NASA plans six major robotic missions to Mars in the next 15 years, the U.S. space agency’s top science experts said on Thursday, but they refused to speculate when humans might go to the Red Planet. The new plan for exploring Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor puts off until at least 2011 a mission to collect samples from the Martian surface and return them to Earth. Astronomers had hoped to get Mars soil samples by 2010. ” 2011?!? ‘Refused to speculate …’?!? Come on NASA!

[Reuters] Draft Report Shows World Getting Even Warmer. “Greenhouse gases are making the world even warmer than anybody had predicted, and it is almost certainly the fault of humans, a draft report from an international climate group concludes.” [emphasis mine] And your proposed budget will include how much for research and implementation of ‘alternative’ sources of energy Mr. Candidate?. Meanwhile, we continue to soil our nest… Every little bit to reduce consumption helps.

Today (the last Friday in October) is the designated holiday in Nevada to celebrate when it was granted statehood. The actual anniversary would be on the 31st (Halloween/Samhain). So I’m home, enjoying the drizzle and currently taking a break from determining the significance of the variance in ‘my’ debitage assemblage (waste flakes from stone tool manufacture) at my thesis site and some ’similar’ sites in the region.

If you live where Daylight Savings Time is in effect, don’t forget to set your clocks, computers VCRs, etc., back an hour at 2 am on Sunday. Fall back!

There is a great thread being spun at Andrea’s Weblog: Coke and other evils. At least I think its great because I agree with folks posting. As always, you mileage may vary.

We just got back from a major excursion to the grocery store and Target. I’ve obviously been asleep at the wheel for some years. When did Halloween become so crassly commercial? Halloween lights that you string on your house like Christmas lights? Are they supposed to be orange icicles? Halloween greeting cards? I was/am amazed.

While the grocery checker was tallying the damages to our finances I paused to flip through the Weekly World News, which is how I keep so up to date on current affairs. Apparently (and they have pictures to prove it!) the Space Aliens are supporting George Bush while the Bat Boy has thrown his support behind Al Gore. Decisions, decisions. The last I had heard of the Bat Boy was that the government had captured him and taken him to Area 51 where I think he was directing some sort of research. I’m glad to hear he’s out and about again. He must be supporting Gore because he (Bat Boy) has figured out the anti-gravity propulsion system on the captured spacecraft they have in Area 51, so I surmise that the grays are supporting Bush in the hopes that he will will supress Bat Boy’s work so the oil companies will continue to profit. No, really. If you think about it I’m sure it will begin to make perfect sense. Another hot trend is women getting breast enhancement surgery over thier lunch hour. Plus, a new diet that cures diabeties AND Alzhimer’s. Don’t laugh, I read it in the Weekly World News, sold at fine grocery stores everywhere, so it must be true. I’m sure that if you’ve missed a few issues you could go to the library and peruse their archives. They might say that they don’t have it, but I’m sure they do. They just might be concerned about letting just anyone have access to so much concentrated information. You just can’t supress the truth.

I think I’m coming down with a cold or shudder the flu. This year is the first time in about eight years I haven’t gotten a shot by October. Time to up my intake of Vitamin C, the Sacrament of Saint Linus. Not that it will necessarily do anything, but I think it will which might be half of the battle. That and sufficient rest.

I do think I’m coming down with something, but I’m not so ill that I’m believing the Weekly World News. Really.
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just a Saturday update:

Nevada has an early voting program that we’re going to participate in. Audrey and I will cast our votes today. Then, I guess we’ll wait and see what happens nationally on November 7th. Vote early and vote often!

My Mom had put her treasured cat Lilly down this week. We spoke last weekend and she said that her cat was quite sick and had been left at the vet’s office for tests. When Mom didn’t call back by Wednesday we began to suspect the outcome wasn’t happy, and when she hadn’t called Friday we were pretty sure. It was a sad, strained call as Mom wanted to talk about us and what we were doing and I wanted her to talk about how she felt. She tucks her emotions away from view, saying that “No one wants to hear about that”. Well, strangers might not, but we’re family. I might interject here that she has talked about grieving for her husband, my father, but I’ve never seen her do so. She talks about it as though it was a spellbinding book she’s read, but not something that happened in the real world. Perhaps that’s how she needs to deal with it, I don’t know. That tight-lipped control over your public face drove me past the brink of madness a decade and a half ago. When she says ‘I’m FINE’, yet every nuance of her voice screams otherwise, I wish she would at least let us in. Of course, wanting someone to dance to your own tune is bad too. She’s alone and in emotional pain and I want to help in the only way I know how.

It makes me appreciate and treasure Audrey even more besides increasing my awareness and affection for these little animals we have around the house. They’re so a part of of lives.

We’re trying to get her to go with us to Audrey’s parents for the holidays at the end of the year. Audrey’s parents are going to join us at Mom’s house for Thanksgiving and we hope she’ll go to Denver five weeks later. Right now she says ‘We’ll see’ which, of course, just means ‘no, but I’m not going to say so’. sigh

I’ve been reading your weblogs in stolen moments and am very impressed with you. garret, Al, Andrea, Susan, Dave, Sheila, jonas, brent, John. There’s lots more, James, Craig, Ken, David, John, Dave, Dori and Tom, André, Rafé, John (everybody is listed in the order I could remember your url ) Great stuff. Absolutely great stuff.

The thesis continues on the logrithmatic scale, half the distance remains, half the distance remains. Work, work, work, half the distance remains.

I’m getting another root canal today. They will be more to follow. I just try to drop into a semi-meditative state where my pulse is about 60/min and witness. It works most of the time, unless he slips. It does bring me back if he says something like “Uh oh”. “Oops” just flat upsets me.

Be good to yourself and each other.
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<decloak>

blivet mechanics 1
Daihatsu Rocky alternator 0

It wasn’t pretty, I had to alter the mounting bracket to get the new alternator in. Now to return the old one and get the core charge back.

That’ll be it for blivet for a while … Have fun.

<resume>
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A belated, but very sincere Thank You to John at G E N E H A C K for taking a stab on the 9th at my more than a little bit unfair to him question about mitochrondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutation rates. It falls in the realm of Oh, you’re an New World Archaeologist specializing in Hunters and Gatherers in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert and analysis of stone tools? Aren’t those Pyramids in Egypt amazing? I’ve always had a question about how they … Yes, I could probably address it as an Archaeologist, but its not really the view of someone with deep knowledge of the subject. Still, I could probably give a good answer because I have studied the Nile civilizations. I think I got a great answer from John, with or without the NaCl. You’re a hell of a lot closer to the bone with mtDNA mutation rates than anyone I know in meatspace. Thanks a bunch.

Zeldman: My Glamorous Life: Goodbye, Mommy. This is well worth reading.

Friday the 13th, heh. I still like the Templar origin urban legend the best.

garret is back with dangerousmeta.

resume hiatal^H^H^H^H^H hiatus
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Still on hiatus, just wanted to say thanks for the well wishes.

Added a counter yesterday, thats what tripped the update flag.
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blivet is going to go on hiatus.
I have to get my thesis written and attractive distractions need to be reduced. This thing needs to get finished so I can move on to other things that the Master’s is pre-requisite to. Sadly (for me anyway), blivet is #1 on that list of attractive distractions. I may update sporadically, but not regularly, and I’ll be reading all of your weblogs, just not posting. You’re a great bunch of friends. I’ll probably be back after Thanksgiving. If you need to get in touch with me for whatever reason, I check my email daily. Amitofo.

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[TOMPAINE.com:] VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE: Dick Cheney Needed to Come Clean and Why Joe Lieberman Didn’t Out Him. Remember that comment about how ‘the government had absolutely nothing to do with’ the money that Cheney made from Halliburton? via Rafé

Al’s update at 11:39:36 AM hearlded the return of EditThisPage from the comatose. I’m glad to hear your Airport is working now. Kudos to you and Seth over at Tech Support? .

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Melbourne Penis Puppeteers Extend Run. I honestly don’t know what to say about this except perhaps, “Oh?”. link via metafilter.

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Working on cars stopped being fun for me one night I remember all too well. A long time ago, in a galaxy far away … (Kansas in the late 1970s) I had a series of old Volkswagons bugs. This particular one was a 1961, old enough that it didn’t have a gas gauge, just a lever above the gas pedal that you could move with your foot to access that last gallon or so of gas. Gas gauges came in the 1962 model. It was a real sinking feeling the one time the engine sputtered during it’s fuel starvation throes and I reached up with my foot and realized that the last time I had to use the reserve tank, I hadn’t pushed the lever back up after I got gas. Anyway, I loved to work on cars during that time in my life, especially VWs. This was my third (fourth?) one. Sometime in the winter of 1979-80 I had drivern the 40-some miles down to the small town of Americus (small even by rural Kansas standards) to visit a good friend from High School who lived about eight miles out of town in an old farmhouse. It was during the bleak, cold time of winter in the plains when the north wind blows little skiffs of snow around, the cows are in the creek bottoms and its just damn miserable to be outside at night. On the way back to Manhattan at about 2 in the morning, scraping ice off of the inside of the windshield as I drove, the gas pump died. If you ever had an old bug you know how pathetic those heaters were in perfect condition. These heater boxes were far from perfect and my breath was condensing and freezing on the inside of the windshield. I knew the fule pump was going so I had the new pump and the tubing cutter, but I was going to do it that weekend, … just not right then in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night when it was about 20 degrees.

To make a long story not much shorter, I ended up drenching my hands in gasoline (have something ready to plug the fuel line before you begin!) and a half hour job took four times as long because of fumble-fingered fatigue, increasing stress (I had a class at 7:30 that morning), mild hypothermia, and the fact that the best flashlight is no good with dead batteries. Over the next two days the top layer of skin that was exposed and got wet with gas peeled off because it froze in the wind. I haven’t enjoyed doing mechanic work since.
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I need to take a break from the alternator. I’m having a problem with the mounting on the block and where it mates to the alternator. They’re both castings, with a pressed in sleeve on the U-shaped block one where the mounting bolt passes through and a pressed in washer at the alternator mounting point. The washer sticks out just a bit, I presume so that it can compress a bit when everything is tightened. The inner distance on the block mount is 58.1 mm (digital calipers: they’re not just for artifacts anymore!) outer distance at the mount point for the alternator is 58.2 mm. A tenth of a freakin’ milimeter, it might as well be a city block. That’s why I needed to take a break, I was beginning to lose my ability to …, how should I say this …, be reasonable. I really don’t like doing car repairs.

Audrey’s off to see Meet The Parents with SirDeath (Mike). I have an appointment with a car repair. Later: They both liked the movie a lot.

The yard is mowed and trimmed, so we’re presentable again. Now I need to rent a baler.

I hope you get to feeling better soon Jeff.

Lots of things going on in town today, the annual Art in the Park in Boulder CIty, the Rennissance Faire for the SCAdians Huzzah! and some music in the evenings. The alternator awaits to be finished as well so we can be bi-vehicular again. Updates wll likely be infrequent and sporadic. Have a great day out there. Later: it turns out that the Rennissance Faire is next week.

It is such a beautiful morning