Yesterday it rained in Baltimore. Not a gentle spring shower kind of rain, and not the usual “this is how it rains in Prague when I’m depressed” gray March rain. This was sideways rain, where the windows on all four corners of the house are getting hit simultaneously and the cats are running to find high ground before the water rises above the litter box. Jen and I peered out the kitchen window at the swollen river winding its way through our backyard down to the bog behind the greenhouse. The bog that I wrote about earlier quickly turned into a lake behind our neighbor’s house, flooding the lower 1/5 of his property.
To my suprise, I got a call from my councilman (actually one of his aides) yesterday, and he was kind enough to answer all my questions to the best of his ability. The construction behind us is for new storm drains, and it’s supposed to pull all the water off the low spots behind our houses. Whether this will work or not, I can’t say, because in my non-engineer’s opinion, they’re ending the drains a yard and a half short. Supposedly the engineer in charge is going to call me and talk me through it all; I hope they reconsider the plan so that we don’t have to dodge mosquitoes all summer long.
I added four pictures of the doctor’s office bathroom this morning, in an attempt to resume picture taking regularly. I’m going to try the picture-a-day thing again and see if I can stir some creativity.
Todd already wrote about this today, but I figure with the combined power of two mighty weblogs, we’ll googlebomb this mutha. A publication cheerfully titled National Defense wrote an article about the game we’re developing. There’s even a little picture there! Of course, the game UI looks completely different now, but no matter. We’re famous!
The La’s are reforming
I’ll believe it when I see a new album.
New York Times linkgen
Link to a NYT article without a username/password.
There are four classic cars for sale across the street from our office. This BelAir is easily the most photogenic of the four (a pea-green late 70’s Olds, a red ’63 Corvette, and a red ’68 Camaro) and in remarkable shape. They’re all for sale, by the way!
Is it wrong that every time I hear The Ocean by Zeppelin, I want to buy a drum kit, set it up in the garage, and rock out with Bonzo?
I’d have to say that the second half of Runes, most of Ritual De Lo Habitual, Siamese Dream and all of Songs For The Deaf have the same primal skin-bashing impression on me.
Droogle
Do a search on what’s in your liquor cabinet. Results may vary.
Company logos in EPS format.
There used to be a Russian site with a lot of these for free…
I can tell spring is coming because my sleep rhythms are speeding up again. Two months ago I was glued to the bed at 9:15, finding it impossible to make 10 hours of sleep last the whole day, but now I’m slipping back into the 7-hour cycle again. I think that this could also be due to the fact that our house has been unbearably drafty this winter. Even after refurbishing half the storm windows last summer, our house is a sieve. Part of the problem is that two of the radiators that should be in the main ground floor rooms are out heating the front porch, which we don’t use in the winter, so we sit on our couch (in front of the fireplace we can’t use because it could kill us) and shiver under blankets. This morning I woke up at 7:30 and it actually felt alright for the first time.
This Slate article is good reading. I’d like for it to be known that if I’m in a persistent vegetative state, that my wife has the full right to pull the tube and let me go naturally. Isn’t the Republican party the party that used to stand for smaller government and State’s rights? I was glad to hear the federal judge’s ruling this morning. And I’m going to quit putting off having a living will drawn up.
In geek news, it looks like our third Powerbook power adapter is toasted; This forum claims it’s ultrasound-welded, meaning I couldn’t get it apart to fix it and then put it back together if I tried. To the Internet!
And in house news, we got a baseline quote on a new kitchen install from a friend this morning. While it’s cheaper than the MSRP, I’m still a little in shock and wondering where we’re going to get the money to do all the things we really need to have done before babies arrive.