aubreyturner.org

On the way to work this morning I noticed that the train was stopped across a couple of the side streets in Argyle.  As I approached the intersection of 407 and 377 I noticed a lot of police and fire activity.  A large commercial lime carrier (18-wheeler) had been hit by the train and dragged about 100 feet south of the intersection.  Fortunately, from the condition of the cab, it looked like the driver got out.

I’m still amazed that people will risk their lives to get ahead of a train.  In any contest with a train, the train always wins.  Unless his truck stalled on the tracks, the truck driver had to have known that the train was coming.  This intersection has warning signals with automatic arms.

Update:  It appears that the driver wasn’t negligent.  He just couldn’t make it across the tracks because of the slick (and oil-covered) pavement.  That must have sucked—to be sitting there knowing that the train is coming and you can’t get across (although I guess you could fault him for not backing up, since gravity should have carried him back down the hill to 377).

Last year about this time I bought a pair of Oakley sunglasses from the Sunglass Hut in the mall.  Yesterday I received the Sunglass Hut Oakley summer catalog.  I was suspicious because it was addressed directly to me (rather than resident), and it was for Oakleys (smells like customer profiling…).

But here’s what upsets me:

• I never registered the sunglasses with anyone.
• I never gave Sunglass Hut my personal information.
• Because I’m a privacy “nut” I almost never give businesses my personal information.
• In those rare cases that I do, I withold permission for them to send me stuff.

This can only mean that Sunglass Hut used my credit card information to obtain my address.  I consider this a serious breach of my privacy (and I would hope that it violates the credit card company’s acceptable use policy for merchants, although I need to do some more research on this). 

I’ve included the text of the email that I sent to Sunglass Hut customer service in the extended entry.

What’s sad (for them) is that I was about to buy a new pair to replace my last pair and I was probably going to go there this weekend.  Now, I’ll be looking elsewhere because I don’t trust them.

Maybe I just need to start paying cash everywhere…

My email to Sunglass Hut:

Last year at about this time I purchased a pair of Oakley sunglasses from the Sunglass Hut store/kiosk in the Golden Triangle Mall in Denton, TX. Yesterday, I was surprised to receive a catalog in the mail from Sunglass Hut with the summer Oakley collection. This catalog was addressed directly to me.

I find this unacceptable because I never gave my personal information to Sunglass Hut. And even if I were to have done such a thing, I would *never* have given you permission to send me anything. I guard my privacy quite zealously. The only way that your company could have gotten my mailing address was through the credit card that I used to purchase the sunglasses.

If this is how poorly Sunglass Hut regards a customer’s private information, I won’t be doing business with you any more. Please let me know how my address was obtained and remove me from any of your mailing lists.

My address is:
    < street address >
    Denton, TX <zip>

I had a few things I wanted to post about last night, but my cable internet service was down.  It’s been flaky for the past couple of days, with intermittent outages (usually at the moment I was ready to post something 🙁 ).  I’ve also been hammered at work for the past few days.  However, I may have a few minutes this morning to catch up on things.

I’ve been halfway watching Boomtown on TNT.  So far, there have been two commercials for K-Y Warming Liquid.  I’m not a prude by any stretch of the imagination, but I have to admit that I was a bit taken aback by the commercial (although the commercial itself wasn’t bad).

Maybe it’s part of the overall push to make certain things mainstream.

On my way out of work this afternoon I came across three women dealing with a flat tire in the parking lot.  They looked somewhat puzzled by the jack so I stopped to offer my assistance.  As I was helping them change the tire, I thought the topic of their conversation was interesting.  One of them commented to the others about how someone from their company had just driven by and didn’t stop or offer to help.  One of the others said that there didn’t seem to be any “real guys” in their company any more. 

I guess I was a bit heartened by that.  It means that there is still a place for guys who take the time to lend a hand when a woman needs it, and there are still women who appreciate it.  Or maybe I’m reading too much into things. 

I just returned from a short camping trip to Lake Ray Roberts.  I’m hot, sweaty, tired and a little sunburned and I wish I could have stayed for a few more days.  We didn’t do much of anything, except sit in what little shade we could get or float in the lake.  But despite the heat (around 96°F both days), it was still good to get away from everything for a little while.  Unfortunately, pesky things like work and paying the bills had to reel me back in.

Slashdot has a review of an interesting new keyboard.  The idea behind this keyboard is to completely change the way you type so as to remove the risk of repetitive stress injury.  It seems interesting, although I have little interest in relearning how to type.  It’s also quite expensive at $695.00.

However, I found this part amusing:

Despite—or maybe because of—the OrbitTouch’s similarity to the female anatomy, it’s very comfortable to use. Your hands rest very naturally on the twin domes.

  There is also a warning that the domes should not be twisted.  Good advice in most cases.

A man who carries a cat by the tail is getting experience that will always be helpful.  He isn’t likely to grow dim or doubtful.  Chances are, he isn’t likely to carry the cat that way again, either.  But if he wants to, I say let him!
    —Mark Twain

I’ve come to feel like I should try to update this site at least once per day.  Unfortunately, between not getting enough sleep lately (my sleep habits are still turned around) and the onslaught of allergens, I’ve been too tired to come up with anything interesting.  My allergies are usually kept under control through Claritin, except for certain short periods when things get really thick in the air.  Right now is one of those times.  The cottonwood trees are spamming the environment with massive quantities of white cotton-like “fluff”.  So much, in fact, that some people’s yards look like they’ve been dusted with snow.  While I haven’t been sneezing constantly, it’s still left me feeling physically drained.

So, until this subsides, things might be a bit light on this site.

As I’ve mentioned here a couple of times I have been on the Atkins plan since September (down 82 pounds so far).  After the initial two weeks, I’ve generally been pretty free from the old cravings.  However, there are times when you miss some of the old stuff you used to have.  So when I got an email from the Atkins Center this morning, this cheesecake recipe caught my eye.

It usually takes me a couple of attempts to get these things right, and I can never complete the recipe as easily as the people on TV do.  While they make it look simple and clean, I make it look complicated and messy.  Fortunately, no permanent damage has been done.  Right now, it’s cooling in the refrigerator, per the instructions.  It didn’t look quite like the example shown on the Atkins web page, but at least it wasn’t a smoking ruin.    I guess the proof will be in the eating, which I’ll try tomorrow.