I’m not sure who “won” the VP debate last night. It’s pretty obvious who actually runs the country, and that Dr. Evil Cheney is an extremely intelligent man. I thought Edwards came off a little too cloying and anxious, while the VP was more reserved, informed, and deadly with his attacks—he got in a few very quiet, very deadly jabs, where Edwards swung more wildly and with less skill. I have to say, I’d be afraid to go up against the VP in a debate, especially since his dark minions sent him in with at least two pages of very damaging accusations and falsehoods against Edwards which he used with great skill. He’s a mean SOB. One thing’s for sure— it’s going to put the next Presidential debate in stark contrast, especially if Kerry gets Shrub on the ropes like he did last week. (There was one minor blunder the VP made, which is hilarious…)
Repairs. For the low, low price of $20, I picked up the parts I need to do surgery on my Airport Base Station last night. (Disclosure: I had to spend $10 for a new soldering iron.) This week is way too busy, but next week I’m going to crack the case and see if I can’t revive the dead. BTW, my experiences setting up a client’s Airport Express were nothing but excellent. Without configuring buttons, setting jumpers, or invoking the Seven Holy Names Of Satan, I was able to get their wireless network set up, sharing a USB printer, and locked down to intruders in about five minutes. No kidding.
Last night I found myself simultaneously watching the Navy/Air Force football game and the presidential debate on closed-captioning while a latin dance beat played over everything. While I couldn’t hear the candidates, I caught the gist of their conversation. This morning, I’m listening to the radio clips of the debate, and it’s pretty obvious that Kerry crushed the President. I’ve been cringing at some of the “points” Bush tried to make and applauding Kerry as he systematically took them apart. It was sort of like watching a college professor debate a grade-schooler.
Meanwhile, we had a farewell celebration for one of Jen’s coworkers; she and her husband are leaving Baltimore for North Carolina and sunnier climates. A crab feast with Corona, followed by pool and Dos Equis across the street made for some creaky Lockardugans this morning.
Here’s what the situation in Iraq is really like. Democracy, indeed. What a disaster.
Hrmm. So the debate is tonight, which interests me a little bit—I’d like to watch Kerry destroy that other guy, but since it’s going to be so tightly scripted, I don’t think it’s worth watching. Instead, I’ll shut off the TV and ignore it.
Here’s a sketch of what the house could look like without the enclosed porch. Since I did this, Jen and I agreed on different pillars (square, perhaps tapered in sort of a Craftsman vibe) and larger windows on the sunporch (over on the side, first floor.)
Album of The Day: Death Cab for Cutie: Transatlanticism. Thanks to Shelly, I am totally hooked on this album. Nate tried to get me into DCFC about three years ago, and I was not into it. I think the Postal Service opened the door, and now I’m going to grab the back catalog.
The roof estimate comes in at about $1,500, which is somewhere around what I figured. While not great news, it’s better than being told the whole thing is shot. So the floors will wait a little while longer.
Overheard at Dinner. The setting: a whitehaired dude sitting four booths down from us at the restaurant down the street suddenly exclaims to his table:
“The difference is, George Bush never threw his medals away!”
It took all my strength to resist yelling back, “At least Kerry earned some medals.”
Activism. Last night there was a meeting at the elementary school across the street about a proposed road-widening not too far from our house. We’re near a major north-south artery off the beltway, and the State Highway Administration wants to three-lane one of the feeder roads, citing accidents and public safety as their major reasons. Living on a highly trafficked state road already, the idea of opening the area up to further congestion does not appeal to me. I’m one of the weird folks who believes that wider roads don’t ease congestion, but promote higher speeds and enable more traffic to back up. I believe in alternative methods for “safety”.
We’ve been in the house for a year now, and we’ve only met a handful of our neighbors. I don’t think we’ve offended anybody on purpose; we don’t let our dogs crap on their lawns, shoot bottle rockets at their windows, or mow the lawn naked. The “community association” in our neighborhood seems to be run by people who aren’t predisposed to welcome new arrivals—they held their annual picnic two weeks ago and never bothered to invite us, or our friends who live across the street. (Just wait ’till I put my “Kerry For President” sign on the front lawn.) So it was interesting to see all of these people together in one room.
The meeting was as you’d expect: one tired-looking state official fielding questions from a room full of frightened residents, with the occasional whitehaired man shouting rambling statements at him. Jen and I filled out our opinion cards and listened to the rabble for a while before leaving; I decided to sign up for the community organization south of us so I have some connection to the opposition (I’d say the room was 95% against, with four or five people timidly raising supporting hands in an informal poll) and the neighborhood. This should be an interesting foray into local politics.
After an abortive final attempt to set up my own WebDAV server at the house for publishing calendars from iCal, I broke down and gave up. Instead, I’m using iCal Exchange, a free WebDAV service set up to help normal folks like me. Sweet.
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
—Benjamin Franklin
Do we really need to hear any more bullshit? Kerry’s people had better wake up and start hitting back, or this election is already over. (fake Onion humor via metafilter) And I’m embarrassed to say that this dude is from Maryland. I hope Obama stomps him.
After an abortive final attempt to set up my own WebDAV server at the house for publishing calendars from iCal, I broke down and gave up. Instead, I’m using iCal Exchange, a free WebDAV service set up to help normal folks like me. Sweet.
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
—Benjamin Franklin
Do we really need to hear any more bullshit? Kerry’s people had better wake up and start hitting back, or this election is already over. (fake Onion humor via metafilter) And I’m embarrassed to say that this dude is from Maryland. I hope Obama stomps him.
The iMac I have set up here at work as an iTunes server has been discovered by the rest of the office. Because of the five-stream limit Apple wrote in to the sharing feature of iTunes, I’m not able to listen to my own music right now.
Brief Political Statement. I’m glad I’m not in New York City. Now, why is the news media ignoring the comments of Dennis Hastert, your House Speaker, the third most powerful Republican in the country, who accused George Soros of financing his empire with drug money last Sunday? (Soros is anti-Bush, and, understandably, kinda pissed.)
Vote Democrat. Vote Independent. Vote Martian. Just get these pricks out of office, please.
Thank You. To the good people of Home Depot: You’ll let me test nailguns in the Tool Corral unsupervised. You’ll let me carry flimsy cans of highly toxic substances through your store and help me load them into my trunk. You’ll leave dangerous circular saws unattended and plugged in throughout the store. You’ll trust an 18-year-old kid to drive a forklift loaded with half a ton of drywall over my head and store it on a rack thirty feet in the air. You’ll rent me a wood chipper to grind the brush in my backyard or dispose of Steve Buscemi, whichever I choose.
Why is it, then, that you won’t let grown adults cut glass to order in your stores because of “insurance reasons?” I wasted half the evening driving across western Maryland looking for somebody who could cut me two panes of replacement glass. (For the record, Lowe’s will happily do it for you.) Unbelievable.
Also, the Airport Extreme base station is up and running without a hitch. The extra $50 or so I spent on the Apple product was worth the money.
Subject: RE: the Catonsville 4th of July Parade
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 16:18:27 -0400
From: “Mayor Martin O’Malley”
To: “Bill Dugan”
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 19 Jul 2004 20:18:27.0996 (UTC)Well, I have broad shoulders, but I always
feel bad for Katie and the kids.
Thanks for your kind words, and for your
support.
Last night I drew some more nekkid pictures at MICA. It was a pretty good evening, although I ignored my own lecture from last week and sketched a bit more than usual. By the end of the evening my mojo was fading, so I packed up a little early and went home.
Meanwhile, Jen had been busy rearranging furniture, and she came up with a fantastic floorplan for the living room which adds the oak library table we were given last year and balances out the whole space. (The living room is a long rectangle, split in the middle by the fireplace and entry arch, which makes it hard to unify both sides.) What a huge difference.
iPod update. I found this repair kit for the 1st gen iPod, so I may be able to fix Jen’s unit, but that won’t solve the busted Firewire connection. More research to follow.
dugan discount liquors, reisterstown, md, 7.16.04 (thanks baby)
Saturday Jen and I put a day of work into the crumbling pile of wood we call a house; I got 90% of the back side of the house painted while Jen waded into the gardens to wrestle the weeds into submission. I will now sing the praises of the Wagner Power Painter to the heavens, build it an altar in the living room, and raise our children to leave it offerings of tobacco and corn. What took me all day to roll by hand in front took about four hours with the sprayer, and I’d estimate that two of those hours were pure ladderwork. (The back of the house features all three main wires to the house: cable, phone, and electrical, which makes moving an aluminum ladder a sphincter-tightening proposition.) Finding the correct mixture of thinning additive to the paint took a few tries, but once I figured it out, the paint went on like butter—and evenly, too.
Saturday I experienced my first book club meeting, which was a pretty harmless good time with a new bunch of folks. Slaughterhouse-Five turned out to be a quick but interesting read, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is the next book on the list. Thankfully, the game of Risk never made it to the floor after the discussion was over, and we left in good cheer.
From four online form requests for a roofing estimate, I’ve gotten a grand total of one reply.
(Today I sent this letter to the Baltimore City Mayor, Martin O’Malley, who rode a float in the Catonsville 4th of July parade.)
Mr. Mayor:
As a new transplant from Baltimore City to the town of Catonsville, I was pretty embarrassed by the treatment your family got during the parade a few weeks ago. My wife and I recently bought a house on Frederick Road and hosted a party with bunch of other city-dwelling folks, the majority of whom I’d call O’Malley supporters. We cheered as you passed by (and, I have to admit, my wife has a crush on you. I’m glad you didn’t stop long in front of our house, for the sake of my marriage) but I’m afraid we were in the minority.
It took a lot of guts to take part in that parade, considering the pronounced Republican slant of the town, and I have to take my hat off to you, and offer an apology for the boorish behavior of the rest of the town.
I hope, at least, you and your family had fun on the rest of the day. Thanks for coming out.
-Bill Dugan
Listening to the Senate testimony on NPR this morning, I was chuckling to myself when one of the generals tried to explain the difference between the Gitmo bay detainees and the Iraqi detainees, and how the Geneva Convention applies to one group and not the other. (Habeas what?)
Desirability. Stopping for a burger in Ellicott City last night, we came upon a near-cherry Austin-Healey 3000 sitting in the parking lot, looking like it was doing 100mph sitting still. And me, without my camera.
Mobility. Given the state of my current automobile, here’s a checklist of the things I’d like to have on my next vehicle, which will be showing up shortly after our return from Italy, with any luck.
- An engine that doesn’t overheat at the drop of a hat (forcing the use of the defroster on high, in August—minus the Scout, the last three of my vehicles have shared this tiresome trait; it’s getting old)
- A transmission that doesn’t slip out of gear during turns at speeds higher than 30mph (going back to a standard would be just fine with me)
- 4 doors (gotta make room for our future KISS army)
- Some kind of cargo capacity beyond a cupholder
- Seats that don’t promote scoliosis in adult humans
- A windshield that doesn’t make my future bride sick to look through
Also desirable, but not mandatory:
- mileage above 25 highway
- 4-wheel drive
- A working radio/CD player
- A pickup bed of more than 6-foot length, but I’ll take the 6
What I really want is a stripped down 6-cylinder fullsize pickup with a crewcab for under $15K, but that’ll never happen, considering Detroit’s need to throw a DVD player, Hemi, and leather heated asswarmers in every truck larger than a Matchbox. What I’ll settle for is a used Tacoma crewcab with 60K miles and a 4-cylinder engine. Finding that truck locally will be the big problem.