aubreyturner.org

Kim du Toit reminds me of an issue that often drives my travel plans, or at least factors prominently in them.

In general, I try to avoid places where I am legally required to be disarmed.  In day-to-day life, this means not going into the Post Office, schools, bars, courthouses, sporting events, etc.  Fortunately, I can, for the most part, get by without frequenting these places.  This doesn’t mean I’ll never go, but I will think long and hard about it ahead of time and will plan for alternative (although less effective) methods of defense.

Mainly, though, the only reason I go is if I’m somehow required to.  If my work requires me to travel, I generally don’t have much choice about it, and it occasionally entails travel to GFW locations (New York state comes to mind).

Aside from work, though, I have absolutely no interest in going to Washington, DC or any of the other GFW locales.  It’d take a congressional subpoena to get me to Washington, DC.

Bears hibernate for the winter.  A quick glance at today’s forecast makes me wish I could reverse hibernate (i.e. for the summer):

I’ve just returned from twelve days of vacation.  I spent the time with family and the last couple of days just doing nothing.  It sure was nice.  Too bad it has to end.

After all these years being hosted on my account, The Bitch Girls are moving to WordPress and their own hosting setup. 

I am now going to delete the hosting entry for the domain from my account so that Bitter can add it to hers.  There will be a period while the DNS changes propagate where you may not be able to access the site. 

I girded myself for a trip to Sam’s today to lay in some provisions for my sister’s impending visit.  Since it’s usually just me and the dog, I was woefully understocked for hosting two adults, two children, and a dog for a week.  As expected, Sam’s was a zoo.  Aside from dealing with the rude and inconsiderate people in the store, spending a bit over $300 at the register, and tearing my favorite shirt on my truck’s tailgate as I loaded the stuff¹, everything went fairly well. 

Anyhow…  after unpacking everything and doing some straightening up in preparation for their arrival I realized that it was nearly 4:00 and I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast.  As I ate, it occurred to me that while we have a word for a late breakfast/early lunch, I’ve never heard of one for a late lunch/early supper (or dinner, depending on your predelictions).  I suppose that it would either be “linner” or “lupper,” neither of which have the same friendliness as “brunch.”  Thanks to a quick Google search, I learned that I’m not the first one to think of it, and that there are actually people out there who use both words.

¹ Note to Avalanche designers:  make that stupid little rubber spacer thingy on the tailgate so that it doesn’t fall off.  The current design sucks and doesn’t take into account someone leaning against the side of the tailgate to reach stuff inside the bed.

I got my “permanent” retainers this week.  I shouldn’t have referenced the fascist boot of the temporary retainers.  The “permanent” retainers are far worse.  Something about them triggers my gag reflex, so it’s taken a lot of getting used to.  The first day I was gagging every few minutes.  I’m slowly adjusting.  Now it’s only every few hours. 

Oh… and to add insult to injury I sound like a deranged chipmonk with them in.  I had to do a meeting this week where I was presenting some information to our customer along with my first- and second-line managers.  I ended up taking them out before the meeting.  I don’t think a strategy presentation delivered by a chipmonk would have been well received.

Jim Carson has discovered that there’s a new anonymous Keller political blog.  And they don’t seem to like him or the people who voted against the library proposal. 

I have to say I’m grimly amused by their take on things.  The “CAVE Men” bit (Citizens Against Virtually Everything) is hilarious in an over-the-top kind of way.

I linked them in my sidebar, although I almost reconsidered when I read the full blurb in their header.  The last sentence struck me as just a little beyond the pale:

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing

Wow.  I didn’t realize having concerns about spending priorities, tax rates, and city politics made me “evil.”  Still, it should make for “interesting” reading from time to time.

I realize that catalogs have long lead times.  But can we at least wait until September or so to bring out the fleece jackets, coats, and flannel shirts?  It’s bordering on 90° outside right now.  It’s too damn hot for the “fall” catalog.

Last week I mentioned that Charter had finally figured out that people were switching to FIOS.  I’ve also noticed since I dropped them that I’ve been flooded with flyers in the mail.  I got two of them yesterday and another one today. 

Granted, a few of them weren’t targeted (i.e. they were addressed to “Resident” or “Our Neighbor at…”), but for the most part they’re addressed to me.  You have to wonder about the utility of carpet-bombing a former customer.  Especially one who has told you in no uncertain terms that he isn’t coming back. 

It might be amusing (in a grim, low-expectations, sort of way) to try to get them to stop sending me crap… 

Westgate Chevrolet had my Avalanche ready on Friday, so I packed up the dog and headed for Amarillo Friday night and picked it up Saturday morning.  Before leaving I made sure to ask the service advisor if the tech had road tested the truck.  I didn’t want to get a couple of miles down the road and have the “new” transmission die on me.  Considering I had to drive 340 miles back home, it was only prudent to be a little distrustful.  And when you add in the fact that the “new” transmission was what GM euphemistically calls a SRTA (Service Replacement Transmission Assembly; double-speak for “rebuilt”) I was a bit concerned.  Unfortunately, it’s in the terms of the warranty that they can do this.  I know the bean-counters like rebuilt parts, but customers almost universally loathe them.  I wonder if GM has ever really given any thought to customer goodwill in this area?  Granted, they didn’t hassle me on getting the truck fixed or getting a rental car (total costs for repairs and rental: $0¹ ).  Still, putting in rebuilt parts doesn’t inspire confidence, regardless of whether it’s still covered by warranty.  In the end, you’re still getting something that’s already failed at least once.

Anyhow, all seems to be OK so far.  Once I got on 287 I put it on cruise-control at 70 and watched the tachometer frequently for any signs of over-revving or sluggishness.  I couldn’t detect any signs of the problem, and the shifts were regular and smooth² (mostly you could only tell the shift points by the tach needle, as the electronic controls on the Avalanche usually deliver very smooth shifts).

Still, once a vehicle has a major episode (anything that results in towing), you never quite trust it the same way again.  It’s bad enough that I’m already an automotive hypochondriac (What’s that sound?  What was that vibration?).  Now I’m going to be watching the tach all the time and expecting the transmission to explode at any moment. 

¹  It’s too bad they don’t allow “incidental” expenses, since I spent three nights in hotels and made an extra trip to and from Amarillo.  All that nonsense isn’t cheap.

²  Except for the cruise control on hills.  It gets impatient on steep hills and kicks down HARD.  If I’m going to be in hilly terrain, I typically turn off cruise control and do it myself, since I can usually do it without having to kick it down if I take advantage of previous hills (I will also tolerate a little more loss of speed going uphill to avoid kicking it down).