A Gentle Reminder

Global Warming Bigot

Lately, I've been noticing that I am becoming closed minded when considering Global Warming information. It's not that I truly don't believe anything someone says about Global Warming, but the mass media and the IPCC are so full of flawed theories, misrepresentation and scare mongering that I just about dismiss anything they say outright.

Recently, Bling! forwarded an article to me that indicated that a "new" island has been discovered off the coast of Greenland. I was a bit confused by the writing, but it appeared as though the island was considered part of the mainland while there was a large ice-sheet. Now that the sheet has melted off, they have realized that there is an island there.

So let's examine some of the flaws in this. Why is Greenland named "Greenland" if it's an ice sheet? Well originally, when it was settled by Vikings and the Europeans "discovered" it Greenland was, in fact, green. It took a long time, but Greenland was slowly covered with ice. My friend was telling me of a whole squadron of WWII planes that ditched there and they found the planes under 200 feet of ice!! That was since WWII.

Now, some of this ice has melted off. Is that really a bad thing? That also means that the island is not new. It was obviously mapped and known long before the ice created a solid landmass that connected the two together.

Yet the article failed to mention any of this.

The article also was confusing in saying that because of the melting ice, the seas would rise and cover the land. Wait a minute.....didn't the ice just melt and show that there was new land? Wouldn't it take the opposite effect for the seas to rise and cover up the land? How does that work?

Then there were numerous other failures and inconsistencies in the article.....like completely failing to mention that some glaciers and ice sheets are growing. They also didn't mention what they meant by "rising sea levels." Truly rising sea levels, or land erosion that looks like rising sea levels? That's a hard thing to measure.

Basically, the article was a standard Global Warming scare mongering article. It made it very difficult to read because it was so biased and so loaded with mis-information that I almost dismissed it outright. But this is not new. And what if I had dismissed it outright? Would I even consider the consequences of the Greenland ice sheet melting? Maybe. Is that a bad thing? Probably.

Because when we get to the point that we cease to have rational and logical thought that is when things get really dangerous. Hence, why I think the whole Global Warming hysteria is a very dangerous thing.

But people are already there. Already, private and governmental groups are taking radical steps to stop this man-killing Global Warming. I bet right now you are thinking, "what kind of radical steps are they taking bRad?"

How about dumping 50 TONS of iron dust into the ocean? That's right, a private group is going to dump 50 TONS of iron dust into the ocean to encourage a particular type of plankton to grow. The theory is that the plankton will bloom and suck Co2 out of the air. Again, I stress theory because nobody knows for sure what will happen or the environmental impact this will have.

How about flooding the atmosphere with sulphates to drop the temperature? This is a "man made volcano effect." We know that when volcanoes erupt they dump tons of sulfates into the air and the temperature drops. So again, the theory is to dump this stuff into the air and cool the earth down.

Let me get this right - these IPCC / Global Warming freaks are warning us about a potential and virtually unmeasurable .5 degree increase in the atmosphere but they want to go and intentionally disrupt the environment and atmosphere by manipulating it (i.e. polluting it) in an effort to change the temperature by more than 1 degree? Does anyone else see how absurd this type of thinking is?

This is not the thought process of rational people. We don't even know, for sure, what will happen when they do this. We also don't know, for sure, what the long term effects of cooling the planet by a degree or so will have. Are you OK with this, because I am not!

Finally! A bug boil!

So I fly in from Montana. I get in late in the afternoon and immediately sweep and mop the floor trying to get the grout dust off. Then I call Young Blood and he comes over to help me move all my stuff back.

Then it’s in the shower for a shower and shave before heading out to the Stars game where we trounced the Florida Dolphins (inside joke) 2-0!!! Side note: that makes game seven in the first round TONIGHT – which pretty much means I’ll probably have a heart attack somewhere around 9:30pm CST.

The next day I get up and ride a bit while grabbing some chow. I decided to do an impromptu bug-boil (crawfish). I wasn’t going to do it, but they (bugs) only go on sale maybe one time a year and this was going to have to be the day.

I called a few people and most people just couldn’t make it on such short notice, but I decided to do it anyway. Most of these pics were taken for my friends in MT that had never seen a bug boil before.

The boil / mix. It’s got all kinds of spices, peppers, onions, garlic, etc. in it. This is right before we bring it to a boil and start taste-testing.

This is a picture of my niece after discovering Beignets (a Cajun donut) for the first time. She ate enough of them with the powdered sugar to produce a nice exploding child effect!!!

Here is a picture of the bugs after I purged them. Purging them is a process by which you stick them in real salty water so that they clear their bowels and stomachs. Yeah, I know it doesn’t sound real pleasant, but it’s better than eating it!!!!

This is one of the “bad boys” that was picked out of the lineup early on. My niece as well as several others had fun playing with the crawfish before they met their imminent demise. My niece had such a good time with them that I had to get a jar and poke some hole in the lid so that she could take couple of them home for pets and for show and tell at school.

Now that the water is boiling we have our first test subject!!!! It took us a little bit of time to get the mixture right, and my friend Dan who is a real coon-ass used his nose and taste buds to dial it in.

The finished product, Batch 1 !!!

We had 35lbs of bugs that went along with a whole sack of potatoes, some corn, sausage and mushrooms which were all thrown in the mix to absorb the spices. Wash down with cold beer and enjoy!

Kitchen Floor Project

The week before last was kind of hectic. I had my kitchen floors re-done. They were about 10 years old and were originally done with linoleum (ick). The stuff was starting to peel up in spots and just not quite looking so hot any more.

When I originally built the house with my now ex-girlfriend we didn't think we could afford the tile and so went the less expensive route. I wish we had done it the first time, but it's too late to cry over spilt milk.

In any case, Bling! helped me pick out my tile and accents. He has a far better eye than I do for putting colors and stuff together. I tend to vapor lock and drool when trying to put all this stuff together. As much as I can appreciate good interior decorating I just can't do it myself. We had hard time finding stuff that we liked, but ended up getting everything from Lowe's even though it was all custom ordered. The next part was picking out a pattern, and so I modified a standard pattern a bit to get the effect I wanted. The idea was to add some color, put something interesting down, and keep it so that it wasn't so busy as to be distracting to the eye.

I also had to find someone that could do the work as it was too big of a project for me and I just don't have time to do something like this. I ended up being referred to James Payton who has been doing this for a long time (20+ years!). His company is called Payton's Masonry Repair (817-925-2906) and he does all kinds of masonry (brick and stone) work including tile. He was very reasonably priced and I am pretty pleased with his work.

The first thing that had to be done was get everything out of the way so that he could tear the old linoleum out. That meant moving the fridge, stove, washer, dryer, foosball table, bakers rack, trash can, laundry basket, wine racks, etc. out of the area. Needless to say the house effectively became trashed and difficult to get around in from that point forward. My motorcycle was imprisoned for a week and we had awesome weather!!!

The James proceeded to tear all the old linoleum out, remove all the baseboards and wood trim, and scrape up all the crap off of the concrete. About this time, after returning from Chicago I noticed that my water heater was leaking so I had to have it replaced!!!! Fortunately there wasn’t any serious damage to anything and I was able to get it replace quickly.

While I had everything out of there I decided to replace all of my lines with steel braided lines to ensure that they wouldn’t burst while I was out of town somewhere and flood the house. The washer and dryer were easy, but the check-valve for the fridge was (note was) a non-standard size of a 5/16” compression setting and everything is now standardized at ¼”. I vaguely recalled having to sacrifice a live chicken to find something that worked when we first moved in and hooked up the fridge. No such luck this time. Every hardware store told me that they didn’t make a 5/16” check valve. Really? Then what did I pull this off of? Oh, that…well…huh….they don’t make one. The easy solution? Replace it with a new check valve. No problem.

Until I get home and realize that the plumber was nice enough to have the valve encased in a little plastic recess in the wall and the pipe was cut EXACTLY to the base of the valve. This meant that I couldn’t get to the pipe! I had to cut out the wall, remove the old valve and plastic housing and then replace it all. But it’s now a ¼” check valve from here on out!!

James was starting to lay tile at this point, but it took him a bit to get a feel for the patterns. He also had to hand “build” the accents on the fly. The pieces that I like weren’t made the way I wanted them. So I had to buy two pieces and then have them torn down and re-assembled while they were being laid. The two accents on the top make up what you see on the bottom.

Because of the pattern, it turned out that aside from the first two tiles that were laid down that all but four of them had to be cut if they touched a wall or other leading edge. It was LOT of work and LOT of cutting!!!

But once it was all in James laid in the grout. These picture show the grout as it is still drying. It’s not supposed to be nearly this red, and most of the red hue is grout dust that I haven’t gotten off the tile, yet. I figure it will take three or four moppings to get it all up, but here is the finished product.

Just Feeling Tired

This week has been a long week. I am still in Montana, but going home tomorrow. I have pretty much been working hard and steady since I got here. I also haven't been sleeping at night for some unknown reason so I am feeling pretty wiped out.

The Dallas Stars are stressing me out, but at least they won in OT last night to keep alive in the series. I, however, may not make it. I'll probably have a heart attack before it's all over.

I am going out with a friend tonight to celebrate her belated birthday. I have another friend that is mad at me. I have to catch a flight out at 6:30am. When I get home I have to clean my floors from the tile project and move all my stuff back and re-clean everything. It's a mess. Then I am supposed to meet up with some new people and some old friends. The weekend is going to be packed.

And of course, I have to start work on Monday with some new projects that will probably take more than 40 hours to do, but they want it by Wed. "umm.....yeah, I'm going to have to ask you to work 15 hour days without rest. I hope you don't mind."

Does it ever end???

And thanks to Bling! for keeping me up on the latest and greatest with the VT Massacre and others for updates on the Imus fiasco.

I'm not sure that I know enough to comment on the VT Massacre, but it certainly seems there is a failure of us as human beings for allowing this to happen.

As for Imus - good for him! I think it's too bad he got nailed as a scapegoat, but the PC crap that we deal with day in and day out is shite and people need to start figuring it out.

Jeeze, I am too tired to even write complete thoughts.

And why is it that people will send a chain letter quoting a celebrity or something and take it as the gospel, but when I point out that they didn't actually say it I am the one that is scrutinized? Good rule of thumb - if it circulates on the Net and was said by so-and-so, it's probably not true.

I'll have to put the tile project up on here when I get a chance. And when I can find time to delve back into world affairs and relax enough to write I'll certainly give you my two-cents worth just like you expect it.

Rain On Me

I am up here in Montana. It's been raining and snowing all day long. What happened to Global Warming again?

I also saw on ESPN that a huge percentage of games have been postponed until later due to winter (read snow) conditions compared to 2 years ago. More global warming?

And my beloved Dallas Stars are screwing up in the playoffs and are about to get eliminated.

I still have a bunch of stuff I want to write about, but I've been REAL busy. I'll try later on tonight after dinner.

Idiocracy

I watched a movie the other night called Idiocracy. Now, don't run out and go watch this movie. It sucked. But, even though I sat there and wasted a little over an hour of my life on it I fear that the point of the movie was prophetic.

The basic premise of the film is that the military takes two average people and accidentally hibernates them for 500+ years and they wake up in the future. In the future these two average people are now the smartest people on the planet because we have continually been dumbing down society to the point where everyone is a moron.

The sad thing is, I don't think they were too far off the mark. The opening few minutes of the film is the best part where they show how evolution has basically ceased and that population growth and explosion are attributed to stupid people, while intelligent people are being bred out. The basic reasoning for this is that intelligent people are less likely to have children as they are more likely to wait until the timing is right (financially, socially, etc), while stupid people are more likely to reproduce again, and again, and again without cause or concern for themselves or the young ones.

Now, if you stop and think about it....this is exactly what is happening!!!! And then, of course we have the dumbing down of our social system, schools, etc. The movie also attributes our future stupidity to our value of entertainment over more cerebral activities, such as reading. Maybe I really don't want to be here in a few hundred years.

Back From The Dead

I think I am finally back online. As I was indicating my laptop was dying on me and it finally did. Unfortunately I was in Chicago when it happened.

After I got in on Easter Sunday I started the process of recovering my data. I got lucky because at this point Windows would no longer boot and gave me a BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) indicating that it couldn't mount any partitions. In computer-speak, this is usually very bad. But I got my data onto my portable HDD and then wiped out the HDD and started re-loading Windows XP.

It was fairly obviously that the drive was fooked because the load was taking far longer than necessary and when I tried installing the 8-billion patches to XP I started getting read/write failures on the drive. At this point I realized it really was hardware related and not just Windows messing up.

I called HP to order a new drive. They wanted $450 for a new 60GB (giga-byte) drive!!! I was fairly astounded and explained to the guy that was about 1/2 the price of a new laptop! He then tells me he is "authorized" to sell me a new laptop for just $400 more with Vista.....and I cut him off and told him he was smoking crack. "Joe" really wasn't sure how to handle me at this point. I then said I was going to source the drive somewhere else at which point he tried to tell me that it wouldn't work right and blah blah...CLICK! Oh, I'm sorry? Were you saying something?

I ran down to Fry's and picked up a new 100GB, 5400 RPM drive for a whopping $99+ tax. They had a 120GB for just $5 more, but they were out of stock. The kicker is that it is a Toshiba drive, just like my old one. So far, it's working great and I have all my data intact (MAKE BACKUPS!). It just took a looooooong time to get it all back together. I still have little things I am tweaking here and there, but for the most part I am good to go.

And as for HP? I wrote them a letter, but I doubt I'll hear anything back.

Can I Write?

I've had a few people give me compliments on my writing on here. As much as I appreciate them, I am far to critical to acknowledge them. I read a lot. And I do not feel that my writing would be, at best, a pale comparison to some of my favorite authors.

My friend, Bling!, recently loaned me a book that I have been reading on my trip to Chicago. It's by Tim Cahill and is called "Pecked to Death by Ducks." I haven't ever read his work before, but I have been enjoying it. The book is divided into small, readable chapters with a near stream-of-consciousness writing style. It is highly entertaining, but go read it for yourself if you like that type of thing (hint - the title has almost nothing to do with actual ducks).

Still, in reading his work I fear that I am no where near as eloquent or descriptive in my style. I don't think people can truly get a sense of my thought process from reading what I write. I am not sure that *I* can even get a sense of my thought process. That lends me to believe that perhaps I have failed in being able to bestow upon the reader of this blog how I feel and think.

Maybe, secretly, on some level, I don't want to....and maybe I do. I am not sure that I have figured that one out, yet.

We are in the Frying Pan!

I see that the US Supreme Court has ruled that the EPA now has control over greenhouse gases. Apparently, they (the court) "emphasized the link between increased concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and rising temperature" (USA Today).

Since when did the U.S. Supreme court starting sitting scientists capable of making these types of decisions?

What we really have going on here is another political scam based on the scaremongering of the Global Warming alarmists.

I fear it shall only get worse. And what happens when they finally realize they were wrong? Do you think the laws will revert back to the way they were before? Keep dreaming....

My Laptop is Blown Up!

Well here I am, stuck in Chicago, and my laptop is having major issues. Last week we had some good thunderstorms and even though I keep this thing on a UPS and all that it must have got hit with something.

The HDD spins and spins even though I have a gig of memory. Windows boots up sometimes, crashes others. A checkdisk took over 7 hours and found "nothing wrong." Umm...yeah, right.

If windows does boots, it takes about 30 minutes. Want to switch between emails in Outlook? Give it a good two to three minutes. Don't even try anything fancier than that.

Fortunately, I have backups..... and if I can get this thing online when I get home I'll back it up again and then I'll probably wipe it out and re-load it.

My last-ditch effort prior to this is running some 3rd party hard drive utils, which I don't have with me up here. So if I am not writing much, you know why!