aubreyturner.org

I’m not sure whether my ear infection was returning before I did the stint at KellerFest last weekend or if all the time spent in the heat took its toll.  But by the end of the day Saturday I had decided that I was going to try to finagle my way in to see a doctor (I didn’t care which one at this point) on Monday.  As luck would have it, the office had changed hours so that they’re open from 7:00am to 7:00pm and they now take walk-ins (which is completely new since I was there two weeks ago).  So instead of waiting around all day for an opening I was pleasantly surprised to be seen almost right away by my doctor who took a look and confirmed that my ears were indeed full of crap (not her exact words…).  Not that I really needed a professional opinion to know that my head is full of crap, though… 

While she gave me a prescription for a more powerful antibiotic, she also thought it possible I may have a problem with my eustachian tubes.  I’ve always had trouble with pressure equalization and getting the water to drain out after swimming.  I recall a couple of flights where my ears never would equalize.  It wasn’t really painful, just annoying, as all I could hear was a general roaring sound.  All I could tell during the pilot’s announcements were that someone was talking, but not what was being said.  So, should the antibiotics fail to do the trick, I’ve got a prescription for a course of steroids. 

If the antibiotics don’t clear up the problem I will have to start the steroids next week while I’m in Boulder, CO.  The Omnicef has helped quite a bit more than the first round of Amoxicillin, and some of the pressure is gone, but not all of it.  I’m driving up there, so it won’t be quite as bad as flying (I’m told that airplanes maintain pressure equivalency of about 8,000 ft.), but still, I can’t imagine the difference in altitude helping with the pressure in my ears. 

Anyhow…  I’m going to be leaving tomorrow and won’t be back until the 18th.  This means the current lame level of service will continue. 

Finally, after two years, I have been freed from the hegemony of braces.  Unfortunately, I am now under the fascist boot of the temporary clear plastic retainers…

Oh well… at least I can now have the food and drink that I was denied for the past two years.  My first indulgence?  Orange juice.  I was told that citric acid would weaken the glue that held the brackets on, so I couldn’t have anything with very much citric acid in it.  I’ve sorely missed my daily glass at breakfast.

I was out at the yearly KellerFEST this weekend as part of our local CERT.  We were there to staff the aid station, which involved (very) minor first aid, answering a lot of questions, and providing water for the firemen, police, and police explorers.

I was there on Friday afternoon and into the night, most of the day Saturday, and this afternoon.  After all that sun exposure I’m now a crispy critter.  So much for “sweatproof” sunscreen…  Or I guess it isn’t sweatproof for me.  It certainly didn’t stick, as my red nose can attest.  But then I probably drank about 5 liters of water, almost all of which came back out as sweat (or so it seems).  When we finally packed up and left this afternoon at 5:45pm, it was 101°F according to the thermometer in my truck.  I’m surprised that no one came down with heatstroke during the event (including me!).

It certainly helped that we had some misters for the aid station.  They proved to be very popular with all of the people passing through, and they certainly helped us. 

However, I think these two were our most interesting “customers” of the day:

I saw on the news this morning that Dallas has declared this to be Mav’s Spirit Week or some similar nonsense.

Didn’t we leave all this juvenile “Rah! Rah!” crap behind in highschool?  Maybe instead of silly spirit the city might want to focus on something more useful?  Like perhaps trying to get a handle on the free-fire zone down in Lower Greenville?

Aside from people yapping on cellphones, the other distracted driver that I often encounter encroaching on my lane is the makeup artist.  Usually she’s driving with one knee while applying eyeliner and looking in the mirror.

I cringe each time I see a woman doing this, since it gives me a lurid vision of a punctured eyeball in the ensuing wreck…

So I see that the world health nannies have declared today to be “World No Tobacco Day.”  I used to be mildly sympathetic to the anti-smoking message, but as the anti-smoking groups have become more militant and have managed to use the power of the state to step on private property rights, my sympathy has dwindled to microscopic proportions.

I’ve decided that in the grand tradition of eat-an-animal-for-PETA day, I will honor “World No Tobacco Day” in my own particular way:

Perhaps the cloud of smoke will keep them away from my door (or, if I’m lucky, it’ll kill ‘em dead on the doorstep through the hyper-deadly dangers of “second hand smoke”). 

That last post reminded me of one of the things I hate more than just about anything on the web:  websites that use Flash for all their content.  I have two words to describe such sites:  THEY SUCK!

Allow me to enumerate the ways in which I hate Flash:

1. You can’t deep-link to relevant content.

   As far as I’ve seen, there’s no way to get at the content that you want without going through the Flash gatekeeper, which is often adorned with baroque crap that you have to tolerate as you navigate your way through whatever path the designer decided was best.

2. As far as I can tell, you can’t copy text.

   So much for fair use or reference.  And you can’t just quote the relevant part or hotlink (see previous).  If you want to point someone to the information (if there is any in a Flash presentation), you have to describe the navigation path.

3. It risks turning the web into TV.

   I know some content producers desperately want it to be that way (commercials and all), but it completely disrupts the browsing experience.

4. Most Flash sites are simply “glossy brochures.”

   If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, dazzle ‘em with B.S.  This is not what the web is supposed to be about.  Sure, go ahead and extoll the virtues of your product, but I want real, useful, information at the same time.

5. It often slows down the web experience.

   The best example of this is the Heart One Texas site.  It has to download all the audio/video for the clever woman announcer.  It was painfully slow over my 15M link.  I’d hate to have to access that craptacular thing over dialup.

6. Sound!

   I consider playing sound without warning on a website as a mortal web design sin.  Further, having no way to disable the sound or stop the animation is another mortal sin.  Of course this can be done without Flash, but Flash sites seem to be the worst offenders.

Maybe I’m just a bit old-fashioned about my expectations for a website, but I want to be able to get at relevant information quickly and without a lot of flashy crap.

Is there no way we can get a holiday without some health nanny do-gooder trying to stick his nose into it to push his pet agenda?

I couldn’t escape ads for Heart One Texas (warning: SLOW POS Flash site with unbidden sound and no way to turn it off) yesterday on either the radio or TV.  They’re pushing people to give heart check-up “gift” cards for Father’s Day this year.  The radio commercial is particularly obnoxious, as it has some guy going on about how Dads don’t always think things through.  Lovely.  More of the men as bumbling boobs theme.

I won’t deny that heart disease is a serious problem.  But these people don’t understand that not every holiday or special occasion is intended as an opportunity to push their agenda.  They get so caught up in the “seriousness of the problem” (You fool!  Don’t you understand!  It’s an epidemic!  We’ve got to do something!) that they don’t understand when to STFU and leave people the hell alone.

What ever happened to the tradition of ugly ties and Old Spice?  Won’t someone think of all the poor employees of the tie-makers?  And without Father’s Day, who would keep Old Spice in business?

I guess your tolerance for weird crap is higher if it’s something that’s just been part of the family forever.  Still, it seems like it’d be kind of hard to accept a mummified baby as just something that belonged to a great-uncle.

A family heirloom is not going over well with police.

The mummified body of a baby kept by a Concord, N.H., family has drawn attention from investigators.

The current keeper of the baby, Charles Peavey, said the tiny mummy has been passed down in his family for many years. Concord police recently got word of the remains and they took them in for testing. A forensic anthropologist will examine the tiny corpse.

Peavey said the mummy belonged to his great-great uncle, who was born in Ashland in 1850. The family estimated that the mummy is 90 years old.

It was discovered among the uncle’s possessions in 1947 in Manchester, N.H.

Police said the testing on the corpse could take a month or more.

Freaky.

I don’t recall where I saw this last, but I’m always grimly amused when I see someone state baldly that because the right to “X” isn’t guaranteed in the Constitution that it doesn’t exist.  This tells me that this person might have read the Constitution but that he didn’t understand it. 

If we were limited to the rights enumerated in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights we’d be pretty well screwed.  The Founders understood this and even argued about it during the debates over the Bill of Rights.  It was the fear of some that enumerating a set of rights would send the incorrect message that only those rights existed.

But you don’t have to believe me.  Just read Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 84:

It has been several times truly remarked, that bills of rights are in their origin, stipulations between kings and their subjects, abridgments of prerogative in favor of privilege, reservations of rights not surrendered to the prince. Such was Magna Carta, obtained by the Barons, sword in hand, from king John….It is evident, therefore, that according to their primitive signification, they have no application to constitutions professedly founded upon the power of the people, and executed by their immediate representatives and servants. Here, in strictness, the people surrender nothing, and as they retain every thing, they have no need of particular reservations. “We the people of the United States, to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America.” Here is a better recognition of popular rights than volumes of those aphorisms which make the principal figure in several of our state bills of rights, and which would sound much better in a treatise of ethics than in a constitution of government….

I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power.