Spent all day yesterday on planes or waiting on planes. Today looks busy. Blogging will be catch as catch can.
If anyone knows the Boise area, feel free to drop restaurant recommendations in comments. So far I’ve been favorably impressed by Bar Gernika and Moxie Java on Chinden.
WCD now has an official mascot.
No, not the drama llama: we are content to leave that for other bloggers.
The official mascot of WCD is the slow loris. How can you not like a venomous primate? If only they could be genetically engineered to fly and kill bureaucrats.
Graduation is over. Back on your heads.
More seriously, the time for introspection has passed. (Also the time for action.) Expect a return to snark, guns, snark, cops, snark, pop culture, snark, art, and snark.
I still have a few things to finish up: thank you notes are being written and mailed, and I need to go through the photos and pull some out for posting.
In the meantime, frankly, things have been kind of slow. I’m not finding a lot of blog fodder; FARK has picked up most of the good stuff, including some “Art, damn it, art!” fodder.
Lawrence did send me an intriguing link yesterday about Rielle Hunter, equestrian, and how her father paid a hit man to kill one of her horses. That William Nack story rings a bell with me, like I’ve read it before, but I don’t remember where. Setting aside the John Edwards angle, it is a fascinating crime story. It reminds me of Skip Hollandsworth’s “The Killing of Alydar”, which was anthologized in one of the The Best American Crime Writing
I would also like to add one final note, for the record: I will put my family, friends, and coworkers up against any other group of people for sheer concentrated awesomeness. Thanks, gang.
Updating the SDC logs has, frankly, become a pain in the fundament.
All of that stuff is hard-coded in raw HTML using text editors. It has always been time consuming to do the updates.
Worse yet, both of the SDC log hosts are going away sooner or later; Apple is phasing out mac.com hosting, and I’m not sure what Commsite’s plans are (except they’re getting rid of the bga.com domain).
Lawrence and I have discussed this and made some preliminary plans to convert the SDC logs to a joint blog (where we both have admin/posting rights). I’ve taken some steps in that direction, and as soon as I hear back from Bluehost support I’ll be able to start taking more steps. Once I get things set up the way I want them, I’ll start moving older entries over.
I’m taking today off to celebrate my birthday, and to take care of a few minor things.
(I know we joke about the DMV, but, really, why does driver’s license renewal have to be so awful?)
One of the things I have taken care of today is school; I have finished my very last academic assignment before graduation and turned it in. I am still waiting for grades, and there are a couple of surveys I need to dispose of, but I have no more real work to do at this time. Just the long countdown to the ceremony, and a couple of events between now and then.
Anyway, folks, sorry for the slowdown. It has been less academic related, and more that there’s been a dearth of stuff I wanted to write about. As graduation gets closer, I plan to write some about that. I’ve been thinking a lot about higher education, and why I did what I did. I want to put some of those thoughts down. So expect content to pick up soon-ish.
I have a subscription to the digital version of the NYT: partially for blog purposes, partially because I needed access to the archives for my final project in last year’s 20th Century History class. (The NYT offers a reduced rate for educational subscribers.)
When the LAT erected their paywall, I signed up at the initial 99 cent rate. I got a bill from them today at the new $3.99 a week rate. Even for blog purposes, and with no educational discount, I’m not paying $4 a week for the LAT. So I called them to cancel.
After I got to a customer service rep (note that they make it relatively hard to do so) and told her I wanted to cancel, she wanted to know why. I explained that the digital LAT isn’t worth $4/week to me.
At that point, they started playing “Let’s Make A Deal”. The initial offer was $2.99 a week. I turned that down. Then they offered me $1.99/week as their “final offer”. I agreed to that, but now I’m wondering if I could have gotten them down to 99 cents a week.
Point of this story, besides the LAT being willing to slash prices; I’d appreciate it if people would let me know if links to LAT stories don’t come up for you. The NYT, as I understand it, still has the hole in the wall that lets you read stories for free if they come from an external link, but I don’t believe the LAT offers that feature.
Also, talking about the LAT and bargain shopping gives me an excuse to use this picture, which tickles my funny bone:
Nobody beats the Los Angeles Times!
I missed this last night: the Texas Rangers are asking for a special prosecutor to assist in their investigation of the Harris County District Attorney’s office.
I learned of the HouChron article by way of The Hon. Murray Newman, who points out this is the fourth special prosecutor appointed to investigate the HCDA’s office since October.
Also, just to make things a little easier, I added a “HCDA” sub-category to the law category, and edited posts appropriately. Now everything I’ve posted (AFAIK) related to the Harris County District Attorney’s office is in one place, for easy review. Just part of the full-service blogging experience here at WCD, no need to thank me.
This does not apply to most of you. However, this blog has a new policy:
We will no longer put ourselves in a position to lose more than $5 to Lawrence on any single bet.
Has anyone noticed that the most recent crop of spam posters seem awfully obsessed with Harry Belafonte?
I’m taking this entire week off of work, and using the time either to do stuff I’ve been wanting to do, hang out with family, or both. (If the weather holds up, we may try for a range trip this week.)
In the meantime, blogging is sort of on the back burner. There will be a TMQ Watch this week, but it may not go up until later this evening.
Side note: Apparently, I have been designated the “coolest uncle ever” on Facebook (I am unable to verify this for myself, since I don’t do Facebook) because I got this one:
one of these:
for Christmas. (At least, I think it was one of those: it was an H&K folder that McBride’s had on sale, cheap, but I didn’t make a note of the exact model. I know it was one that had the tanto point. If he still has the box, I’ll get the exact model later.)
Sorry, folks. I’ve been out of sorts for a couple of days now and the tank is low.
I don’t have much to add to the Hitchens parade except that I really liked Why Orwell Matters
The NYT has an article up about the new Texas cockfighting laws:
“people who breed fighting birds”? Uh, they’re roosters. Is there a visible difference between regular roosters and cockfighting birds? Other than maybe the plumage? (Obligatory: “Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue, idn’it, ay? Beautiful plumage!”)
“own cockfighting paraphernalia with the intent to use it” So how is law enforcement supposed to determine “intent”? And what constitutes “paraphernalia”?
I’m not a big fan of cockfighting (though I am a big fan of Cockfighter
I’ve also been withholding comment on the Dakota Meyer situation. Frankly, I don’t know what to make of it, and I’m not comfortable passing judgement either on the man or on the award. I do feel compelled to make note of the controversy, though.
I also want to point to this piece by Dustin Curtis: “Fly The Airplane”. Don’t have much to add to that, either, because Curtis is saying something I’ve been known to say. A lot.
(And The Checklist Manifesto
…we apologize for yesterday’s radio silence. We were not feeling well, and spent a large chunk of the day sleeping. (And the rest of it engaged in totally mindless activities.)
For what it may be worth, we do feel considerably better today, and expect to be at or near full operational capacity by the weekend.
This is your yearly reminder that, if you’re doing shopping for the holidays, and you use the Amazon search box on the right hand side of the page, I get a small kickback.
This allows me to continue providing the high….high…okay, I can’t say “high quality content” with a straight face. How about, this puts some jingle in my pocket that I can spend on guns and ammunition?
Bear with me, folks. I’m having a pretty crummy day and am going to have a long night.
I haven’t forgotten the TMQ watch for this week, but my target at this point is mid-morning tomorrow.
Including my sister, the doctor, who is now one of the bloggers on the Park City Mountain Resort “Snowmamas” site.
I’m delighted.
I’m also a little jealous, as she’s already made more off of her blogging than I have in two years.
But that’s not important. If you’re planning a family ski vacation, I strongly encourage you to consider Park City Mountain Resort. I know my sister and her family have been very happy with their stays there.
