Continuous Stream of Consciousness

Karma

So yesterday when I was picking up my stories(shut up, even Ben Afflack reads comics) I noticed a car a few aisles away with the hood popped and cables leading out from the battery. I sat there for awhile wondering what I should do, as I couldn't see anyone, when an elderly man stepped out from the car(the hood was blocking him). He started walking towards some college-age kid with a 24 pack of beer under each arm heading towards his car. The kid seemed to notice the elderly guy, kinda leaned forward so he couldn't make eye-contact, and sped up so he could load his beer and drive off. I was pretty astounded. I drove over and gave the gentleman with car problems a jumpstart, which took under a minute.

I don't believe that the Divine Progenitor intervenes in human events, but I do believe in karma in that if you act like an asshole to strangers enough, people will pick up on it and it will turn around and bite you in the ass in the future. Happy drinking.

The Gateway to Hell

I've been calling laundromats "entrances to Hellmouths" for quite a while, and I've felt pretty pleased in coming up with that. Meanwhile, I'm working through the late '90s "Conspiracy" TV Shows, such as The X-files and Millennium . Much to my chagrin in one of the episodes of the second season of Millennium a devil(not THE Devil) refers to laundromats as "the gateways to Hell". I probably saw that episode at some point and have been using it subconsciously.

Caturday

Now with extra Puggle

Caturday

She's looking pretty smug, isn't she?

I love this phone

I hadn't realized how abusive a relationship I had been in with the Blackberry Storm(other than I know it was slow and buggy) until I switched to a Droid X last fall. The screen is better, the interface is better, it has a good GPS with good software to go with said GPS. I love it. The problem is that, if I am hiking for hours and hours on it, or over a weekend, or at a amusement park, etc. the battery is in real danger of it running out...especially since I use the phone a lot more than with the Storm!

So I got a "expanded battery".

The new battery has 1880 mAh worth of capacity, versus the default 1500 mAh. Since the battery is every so slightly bigger, a different battery cover is needed.

But honestly it looks just the same as my other one, and my protective case fits on it just as well before. So far it seems to be functioning fine.

Stimulating the economy through camping

The UPS guy just knocked on my door, delivering my Jetboil stove from Backcountry.com. This brings the number of stoves I own up to 3:

The jetboil is on the far right(which is a one piece stove/pot with a built in windscreen), the middle one is the stove I've been using the most, the Brunton Raptor, along with the cookset I use the most. The one on the far left is the Whisperlight multi-fuel stove. It'll burn anything. If you ever want to freak other people out use everclear as fuel for it and sip from the fuel bottle. I'm thinking of making a Keg Stove to add to the collection.

I also have 2 Backpacks for overnight/multiday camping, 2 backpacks for "long day" hikes, two tents annnndddd....three sleeping bags. Yup. At least no one can accuse me of not being a Keynesian when it comes to spending.

That's a weird Segue

A friend of mind claimed that my previous post contained a "weird segue", I don't think he is one to talk because he has an entire website dedicated to the inner workings of the Galactic Empire.

Got it up and running, and holy hell was I cursing up a storm, one of the memory sticks just did not want to sit right.

Objective Interim

The US military(specifically the Army) likes to use the term "Objective Interim" when they are describing a program that isn't what they really want, but a substantially down graded version of what the goal is because they feel they need a capability now. For example:

This is what the Army wanted in the late '90s early '00s, a new armored personnel carrier to carry soldiers around the battlefield. It would be relatively light(easier to transport in), well armed, armored, have all kinds of neat gizmos and electronics, and be able to go anywhere whilst replacing a lot of infantry who got around in trucks.

What they got as their "Objective Interim" Vehicle was this, a APC used by the Canadians, US Marines, a bunch of other countries, and then they slapped some new electronics in and replaced a bunch of "truck" infantry so there was something relatively secure for them to ride around in in the battlefield. It didn't do everything they wanted it to do(wasn't well armed, had dubious offroad capability), but it was a (relatively!) inexpensive upgrade and new capability.

With that in mind, my DVD-ROM(which has gone through 2 computers) has given up the ghost. I've decided to take the chance to double my RAM to 8 GB and install a Blu-Ray ROM. And so, I present the Objective Interim Computer Modernization:

A home for scared people

As I sit here and think about it, I don't really live in fear of much. Yeah I get scared when certain things happen, such as when I'm camping several miles form the road, and it's late at night when a hiker walks up to my campsite and flashes his flashlight at my tent. That was pretty scary, and yes, I did pull out my swiss army knife and await my role in a slasher film. But I'm not really living in fear of that happening again.

But I am living in fear of one thing, and terrified of it. I'm scared of my cat.

Specifically, I live in fear of coming home or waking up, and Willy is just dead with no warning(well, other than his existing health problem). When I came home from work this morning I fed the animals, did my timesheet, and went to bed. The cats tend to sleep on the bed when I am, so they both followed me in. When I woke up in the afternoon(a family moved into the second floor and they tend to have visitors that just honk the car horns outside the building. I'll let you guess the ethnicity) Willy was completely still. Wasn't reacting to me getting up and moving, and as far as I could tell, wasn't breathing. I started to shake him going "Willy! Willy!" and, thank goodness, he jerked awake. He rarely goes into a deep sleep, so it scared the hell out of me. My heart was racing.

(Mary, by contrast, could sleep through a nuclear attack)

I worry that this makes me sound like an asshole, but I hope that when it is Willys time there'll be some kind of warning so I can take him to the vet. I honestly don't know what I would do otherwise.