Laserlight

The Most Important Job Interview Question You Can Ask - Forbes

2012-02-18T17:57:00.000-05:00

The Most Important Job Interview Question You Can Ask - Forbes:

"Are you happy?" Don't pay too much attention to what they say, but watch their face as they respond to that.

Socialists

2012-02-17T19:00:00.001-05:00

Socialists cry “Power to the people”, and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean: power over people, power to the State.

-Margaret Thatcher

Wild Wild West

2012-02-16T00:28:00.000-05:00

I have to admit I had fun at this, although "admit" may be the key word here. It certainly wasn't a great movie. The chemistry between West and Gordon didn't work well--I think because we're using to Will Smith playing smart characters, and in this movie he was the action type while Gordon was the genius. Selma Hayek was there purely for eye candy; her character didn't really have anything to do other than stand around in a corset. Same thing with Bai Ling / Miss East. It looked like the story was setting her up to be an important character, and then it just fizzled. I'd like to have seen more of her, but after the fight in the plantation, she just stood around next to Loveless, doing nothing. The final fight scene was badly written; instead of taking on previously-established bad guys, West takes on a bunch of minions we've never seen before. On a 1 to 10 scale, it can't rate more than a three.
But nonetheless, I had fun.

Books in Progress

2012-02-12T22:14:00.006-05:00

Dies the Fire, by S M Stirling. Imagine if electricity and high energy chemistry (gunpowder, internal combustion) went away. You have medieval technology plus whatever you can scavenge; chainmail is a lot easier to make than it was historically, for instance, because you can find reels of wire instead of having to draw it. If you're already concerned about a Carrington Event or a EMP attack, this may be a bit depressing.

Story Engineering by Larry Brooks. Haven't gotten far into it yet; the message thus far is "any good story has to have these six factors. You can wing it or plan it, but you have to have these. You will do better if you know what they are, instead of blindly flailing around and hoping to hit them."

Burton & Swinburne in the Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon, by William Harrison. Sometimes you can read Book 3 of a trilogy without having gone through 1 and 2 first. And you could probably do it with this one, but I wouldn't recommend it. I found it hard going. This may be because Burton does some time travel, and gets involved in the Great War , with all the gore and mess and stupidity of the real Great War, plus biological weapons. Not something I want to read about for fun. I quit about halfway through.

Agent to the Stars, by John Scalzi. The protagonist is a talent agent in Hollywood. His boss hands him a challenge: "An alien species has secretly contacted me. They want us to market them to the world, to make sure that the world sees them as Friendly Aliens rather than Evil Aliens. By the way, they look like snot and smell like rotten fish." The story is a lot of fun and has a couple of twists which took me completely by surprise.

Anti-Government

2012-02-12T14:01:00.001-05:00

It has always amazed me that the people who want the government to do a few important things, and to do them well, are called "anti-government," while those who want the government to do many things, all of them badly, are not.

--Glenn "The Blogfather" Reynolds

Snow

2012-02-11T23:42:00.003-05:00

First real snow of the year, about half an inch. Temperature was right about freezing so it was kinda snow, kinda freezing slush. There was no "soft, fluffy" stage, it went straight to "crunchy". Power went off several times in the night, the wind was howling, and the mutt was pacing. Not a good night for actual sleep.

There is no adequate substitute for hot chocolate. Coffee + mini-marshmallows doesn't do it.

Writing

2012-02-10T23:59:00.002-05:00

Got out my NaNoWriMo 2011 manuscript and did a little work on it--nothing major, just gettig back into gear.

Hats part 2

2012-02-09T23:14:00.005-05:00

After the sad tale of the out-of-stock hats, I was resigned to waiting until later in life. But, on Monday I said to myself, "While I'm here on Amazon anyway, you know, I might as well just check and see..." and sure enough, there was exactly one "Hat, Gambler Style, color Black, size L" in stock. And about fifteen seconds later there were none in stock, because I'd claimed that one. It was Monday night that I put in the order on Hats.com; the box arrived Wednesday. Fits just right. Clearly someone had passed the word to Mr Four Luck Dragon Venerable Hatmaker, and he made a special effort to get that one finished and dispatched to me. Yay!

Well behaved women

2012-02-08T19:08:00.002-05:00

One of my neighbors has a bumper sticker: "Well behaved women don't make history."

That's because most people don't make history. Behaving badly doesn't mean you'll make history. Unless you're counting the police blotter as "history".

The OMG-AR15 Unicorn zombie gun - Boing Boing

2012-02-07T18:45:00.001-05:00

The OMG-AR15 Unicorn zombie gun

Just in case your little girl needs an assault rifle with chainblade.

Foods

2012-02-04T22:27:00.003-05:00

It's been a relatively international week for food. English fish and chips, Thai nam phrik pao, Italian shrimp something-or-other (breaded with Parmesan, served with warm lemon slices), Indian chicken tikka masala, lamb vindaloo. The Thai wasn't spicy enough and regrettably it had fresh cilantro, which tastes like soap to me. The lamb vindaloo was nice and hot, and the shrimp was better than I expected.

Amazing Things

2012-02-04T19:46:00.001-05:00

Human beings are capable of amazing things. Don’t make excuses. Do something amazing.

Lake Vostok

2012-02-02T21:44:00.002-05:00

According to Discover, "After two decades of drilling through miles of Antarctic ice, Russian scientists are about to breach an underground lake that has not been exposed to the surface in more than 20 million years. "

Of course, as Charles Stross tells us in A Colder War, some things might be in the lake that we really don't want to know about.

Average

2012-02-01T23:39:00.001-05:00

On examining the populace, I have concluded that 97.3% are below average.

From "Armed and Dangerous"

2012-02-01T19:01:00.001-05:00

Armed and Dangerous: "Two bits of science news appeared on my radar today with not much in common except that they’re both exceedingly bad news for the political class. That more or less guarantees that they’ll get poor or nonexistent coverage in the mainstream media and is a good enough reason for me to write about them."

Cursing Big Business

2012-01-31T22:19:00.003-05:00

Those politicians, professors and union bosses who curse big business are fighting for a lower standard of living.

--Ludwig von Mises

Virga: Sun of Suns

2012-01-31T20:18:00.002-05:00

Karl Schroder's book Sun of Suns is set inside Virga, a mini Dyson sphere about 5000 miles across. There is a small artificial sun in the center, around which everything else drifts in slow orbits: lesser suns, spinning cities, spherical forests, icebergs, rocks, and immense clouds. "Winter" isn't a time, it's a location--anywhere that is too far from a sun, or shadowed by cities or other permanent features, and therefore doesn't get enough sunlight. Ships through immense clouds.

Hayden Griffen's mother attempts to start a sun for the city-state Aerie, but the project is attacked by Slipstream forces, a city whose orbit has brought it close to Aerie. Hayden sets out to seek revenge on the man responsible for the attack. He meets his enemy's wife, and a youngster serving in the Slipstream navy, and a woman from outside the world. They discover that an enemy nation is getting closer, and it has dreadnoughts; in order to defeat this enemy, they set out to find a legendary pirate treasure.

The story is interesting, the characters are realistic rather than cardboard, but what's really fascinating is the setting, and the worldbuilding behind it. Definitely buy.

Dolphins

2012-01-31T19:54:00.004-05:00

During lunch today, I went to the beach at about 50th Street. Two pods of dolphins went by, heading north to south. The first group had about ten members, and they were all dark grey. The second group had six dolphins and two of them were a lighter grey. Perhaps they were Confederates?

No pics, because my cellphone made it hard to distinguish between "here's a fin" and "here's a pixel which is marginally darker than the pixels around it."

Self guided bullet

2012-01-31T19:50:00.002-05:00

According to Wired, Sandia has developed what the article is calling a "self-guided bullet", i.e. a four inch long, finned bullet that can home in on a laser spot.

Sunspot Minimum?

2012-01-29T19:50:00.003-05:00

Some talk from The Daily Mail about whether Cycle 25 will be lead to a mini ice age.

Saturday

2012-01-28T23:22:00.002-05:00

Took the Mutt out to the little woods next to Great Neck library, and let her run around. The ground has some low spots, enough for a mud puddle about two feet wide and ten feet long. The Mutt drank from it, then stood in it, then abruptly laid down in it. Could have been worse, though; she got straight up again when I called her, and she didn't roll around in it.

We've had a Bowflex for a while, and it's mostly been a not-very-efficient clothes rack. We finally sold it today. Yay! Money and more room.

Went to Echos of Time, a costume shop in Virginia Beach. They have lots of stuff there, a lot more than I'd expected from their website: Civil War uniforms, 1920s mobsters, medieval, science fiction red shirts, and more. There was a pith helmet that I'd have bought, except it was rental-only.

Discovered the Highlander restaurant about one block north of Echos of Time. It's an English / Scottish restaurant. It's a generic small restaurant, plus photos of pipers and Scottish landscape--but you're not paying "ambiance" prices either. Service was very good. I had a half serving of fish and chips; the fries were nothing special but the fish was a huge filet of fresh cod, hand battered right there, and really good. The other side of the restaurant is a mini-grocery where you can get things like shortbread, toffees, ales, fish & chips batter, shortbread, Devonshire cream, tinned haggis (not that you'd want to), lemon marmalade, or shortbread.

Went by a game shop to pick up some d20s. Why on earth do people make dice with die/ink color combinations that are nearly unreadable? Marbled brown dice with burgundy ink--you can read it in bright light if you stare closely enough, but why not make it "solid blue with white ink" or something equally easy on the eyes?

Enterprize

2012-01-28T21:18:00.003-05:00

Josh got to spend a day working on Enterprize, a two masted topsail schooner, replica of the one that brought settlers to Melbourne in 1835. He had a seat on the end of the bowsprit, went up the ratlines (barefoot), furled the sails, got a bit sunburnt, and had a good time. It did not, unfortunately, have a gun larger than a signal gun. Anyone who has a 68-pounder carronade available, please let us know...

XDM: Xtreme Dungeon Mastery

2012-01-25T22:31:00.002-05:00

I saw the description of XDM: Xtreme Dungeon Mastery on the Schlock Mercenary blog. I'm still getting almost everything in dead-tree form, but I bought this in the Kindle edition and read it on my laptop.

Good point about e-book: you can click back and forth between the main text and the footnote.

Bad point about e-book: trying to find a font setting which makes the footnotes big enough to read, while leaving the main text small enough that the screen has more than six words at a time.

As for the content of the book...

The point of the book is to make RPGs exciting and entertaining. I'm all in favor of that, couldn't agree more.

About a third of the book is very good. Structuring a story, creating the atmosphere, keeping the pace, the Campbellian monomyth structure.

Another third boils down to "have a good, experienced DM and let him run things". You don't need a lot of charts, tables, skill lists, statistics and such, if the DM is good; you just get a few basic stats and then describe what you want to do. The DM assigns a target number and you roll a pair of d20s, to see whether you succeed or not, and how strong your success or failure is. This works out really well, quick and fun, IF you have a good, experienced GM. The fact that you don't have combat modifiers written down anywhere doesn't mean that you don't need them; you still need to know whether, for example, it's reasonable for a guy with a dagger to beat a guy with a sword, or a crocodile, or whatever you're likely to be facing. If those kinds of things aren't written down, they have to be in the DM's head. That is to say, this section is great if you have the sort of GM who doesn't need this section.

The third third was not useful--funny, a lot of it, but not anything to significantly enhance your gaming experience. It tells the imaginary history of the secret society of Extreme DMs. It tells you how to juggle, do card tricks, use flash paper, and perform a couple of stage illusions; but prestidigitation is hardly a key component of being a DM. I'm sure you can use magic tricks to enhance the game experience. I'm also sure that for the same number of hours, you'd get more benefit for your game by learning storytelling technique and doing prep work on your game than you would by learning stage magic.

I wanted to give this book high marks. For some people--people who have a moment of enlightenment and say "ah, I can streamline things and speed up my game", or people who haven't thought about making the game follow a story arc--this could certainly be worth every penny. In my case, though, I'm glad I only paid for the Kindle version rather than the hardback.

Hats

2012-01-25T20:28:00.006-05:00

I'm looking for a hat, black, gambler style. Looked at Steampunk Emporium; the one I want is out of stock and they're not sure when it will be back in stock ("varies between a few weeks and a few months"). Ordered one from Hats.com on Sunday, with standard ground shipping; it arrived on Tuesday. Unfortunately, in this case, an XL is a bit too large, and the size L is out of stock as well ("could take up to three months") . I looked at a couple of other websites, but the right size / color / style combination is out of stock everywhere I looked.

Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is conspiracy. I set my world-renowed research and espionage organization to investigating. Whispers were exchanged in the back alleys of Bangkok, cryptic scraps of paper were silently passed from hand to hand in Angola, and a tattooed snake was examined in Iceland. My agents discovered that the entire world's production of gambler hats (black, size L) comes from Road Xing, a village in southwestern China; they are the work of a sixty-seven year old man whose name is either Four Lucky Dragon or Grumpy Venerable Hatmaker (China has two different writing systems and I'm not clear which one my spies were using). Mr. Four has been off visiting his sister and admiring his new grandnephew since October, and his apprentices are reluctant to do anything more than apply the bands to hats which Mr. Four has already blocked. And they finished that up in November. So, no new hats until Mr Grumpy finishes recuperating from Chinese New Year, goes home, and gets back to work. Plus time for shipping via yak to Nepal, bicycle cart to Bombay, and steamer across the Pacific.

[ edit: happy ending ]

afterthought: I should mention that I'm not ranting at Steampunk Emporium or Hats.com ; they both replied to emails in a timely manner and neither of them said "give us money now and we'll ship your item eventually". Sometimes you're just out of stock and that's the way it is. I myself once had a situation:

Customer: I need some Vespel (a high grade industrial plastic) , this size, that grade, in about three weeks.

Me: We're out of stock, and due to circumstances at the resin maker, that has a forty-six week lead time.

Customer: Okay, so about the middle of next month, I can live wi--.

Me: No, not "four weeks to six weeks". Forty-six weeks. End of October.

European separatists

2012-01-23T20:44:00.002-05:00

A comment at Via Meadia:

"If there was only one way for a region / population to leave the EU, you would eventually end up having to break the cardinal rule against putting all your Basques in one exit."

--Bruno Behrend

So You've Discovered That You're A Fictional Character

2012-01-23T18:39:00.002-05:00

An article from Cracked.com on how to cope with this momentous discovery. (It's been several years since I realized that I'm a non player character).

Goals

2012-01-22T17:23:00.001-05:00

"Your goal is not to get to the top of Everest--because if that's your goal, you're likely to die there and stay there. Your goal is to get back down again."

--climber's saying

The Difference Engine

2012-01-22T14:07:00.003-05:00

The setting is the interesting part of this book. It postulates that Charles Babbage built his Analytical Engine in the 1820s; a techno-industrial party came to power in 1830; and British industry, science and power have been advancing steadily ever since. The United States aren't united; instead, we have the Confederacy, the Union, Texas, and the Manhattan Commune. Mexico is controlled by France and the first Japanese agents have come to England to learn about the Industrial Revolution and Babbage enginery. There are a few steam-powered cars on the streets of London, a well to do man might have several telegraph/tickertape lines in his house, the Imperial forces have airships and artillery computers, and every citizen is assigned an ID number which is used as a credit card and for government surveillance.

The story starts with Sybil Gerard, daughter of a Luddite leader and now a prostitute; her story runs a couple of chapters, and then she disappears. Then we meet Laurence Oliphant, a diplomat, spy and journalist, and deal with him for a chapter or so. Then we have most of the book, which is about Edward Mallory, a paleontologist who has been in Wyoming digging up a brontosaur; he acquires a set of computer punch cards and gets embroiled with some mysterious foes who want to get the cards back, or overthrow the British government in favor of anarchy, or find a perfect gambling system, or something. Then we're back to Oliphant for another chapter, then Sybil for a bit, and we wrap up with a hash of fictional newspaper articles, interviews, letters and bits.

I suspect this whole mess is supposed to be a retrospective from the point of view of the first Artificial Intelligence, but it's not at all clear. It was definitely not a "I can't put this down!" book; it was more of a "I'm determined to plow through this." If you feel obligated to read it, check it out from the library.

English Rose Tea Room

2012-01-21T23:29:00.004-05:00

We went to the English Rose Tea Room today. It's easy to miss--I drove past it the first time, and only found it on the second try because I knew the building number. Nine tables, about half full when we got there at 2:30. Dusky rose walls, a faux fireplace, and background music contributed to the ambiance, although it's marred by fluorescent lighting. Shelves on the wall behind me had various tea mixes, including caramel truffle and some less exotic blends. The china didn't come in sets; each cup went with its own saucer but there didn't seem to be two cups of the same pattern, and the plates were different as well.

First select your tea, one pot per person; we got white plum and raspberry almond, both of them made with loose tea and you had to remember to put the strainer on your cup when you poured. It wasn't as hot or strong as I'm used to (admittedly, I usually let mine steep for quite a while); it didn't come with cream, although that may have been because they weren't black teas. The sugar came in cubes, or formed in the shape of a mint leaf or maple leaf. After that came the food:

Two scones, one cinnamon and one crème brûlée flavor, with Devonshire cream.

A saucer of fruit, including blackberry, sugared grapes, and slices of apple and strawberry.

Soup and quiche. The soup du jour was tomato with carrots, potato and chicken, served in a teacup

Tea sandwiches (cucumber and cream cheese on white, roast beef on wheat, ham biscuit, pimento cheese on pumpernickel) and sweets (banana bread, cream puff, coconut macaroon with chocolate, and cake). The roast beef and the ham could have used some sharp mustard, in my opinion. I think of pimento as Southern, but I'm told it's popular in Britain.

It was a bit pricey ($50 for two) but enjoyable.

Maintaining friendships

2012-01-17T22:46:00.001-05:00

‘If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair.’
- Samuel Johnson

New Books

2012-01-17T22:29:00.002-05:00

Got The GASLIGHT Compendium, Monster Hunter:Alpha, The Difference Engine, and The Anubis Gates.

Now the problem is deciding which one to read first...

January 16

2012-01-16T22:33:00.004-05:00

On this day in 27BC, Julius Caesar--known to his friends as "Big Julie"--was given the title Augustus. This marked the beginning of the Roman Empire--and the end of the Roman Republic.

In 1605, the first edition of Don Quixote is published.

In 1707 the Scottish Parliament ratifies the Act of Union. People have been questioning the wisdom of this ever since.

MarsCon

2012-01-14T22:49:00.005-05:00

I went to MarsCon in Williamsburg today. My schedule:

interview with SM Stirling (author of Conquistador and The Peshawar Lancers, among many others)
panel on steampunk costuming
writing seminar on plotting
diversions and amusements in the age of steam

I couldn't tag people and number them and attach little radio transmitters so scientists could study their migration patterns, but I'd guesstimate there were several hundred people there, possibly as many as a thousand, including guests, vendors, undead, steampunks, a member of the 501st Legion, a couple of jedi, a Sith, some Umbrella Corp guards, post-apocalyptic zombie hunters, miscellaneous geeks, and a few mundanes. Roughly 2000 square feet of vendor space, including Robert Quill, Artist for Hire and a couple other cartoonists, Hatton Cross Steampunk and a couple others with steampunk goods, The Leather Lair (they had some very nice coats and corsets, their website doesn't do it justice), plus people selling swords, books, games, tee shirts, jewelry, carvings, paintings and such.

Notes from the SM Stirling interview:

He said his e-book sales were 10% of his total last year, 20% this year. He likes reading books on history of logistics and such things; "world-building is good occupational therapy for lunatics who think they're god". He trained as a lawyer but had his dorsal fin removed, so never practiced.

The average book takes him 6-12 months to write, not counting gestation time. "The distinguishing mark of a real writer, compared to a wannabe, is...they write. And finish." He said his natural story length is a novel; "writing a short story is like stuffing a live cat into a Coke bottle without hurting it." And he said "If you're not having fun when you're writing, you're in the wrong line of work. It is work, but it's fun work."

Notes from the steampunk costuming panel:

"Ganymede Thornycroft" and "Finnegan O'Sullivan" were there with elaborate outfits. Most of the stuff people had was built with materials found in thrift stores, or bits picked up from the hardware store, or low-cost shops like Tuesday Morning. The best thrift stores are the ones by a military base, as they get a good assortment of strange things--things bought overseas, for instance. Get a Dremel or similar tool, and go to it. Steampunk: Gears Gadgets and Gizmos was recommended.

Notes from the writing session will be on Ficton.

Bought a couple of books and a game which I'll review later, had several people complement my paisley vest, resisted buying a handsome zatoichi sword for which I have no possible use, avoided the zombies, and had a good time.

Mars Con

2012-01-13T01:02:00.002-05:00

I'm going to MarsCon in Williamsburg on Saturday. SM Stirling (The Peshawar Lancers) will be there, there will be a couple of writers' workshops, and a couple of steampunk panels.

The Last Airbender

2012-01-10T22:36:00.002-05:00

This is one of the rare movies where the film is better than the previews make it look. That's not to say that it's a fantastic epic; it's constrained by trying to follow the source material, and it looks like it was intended to lead into a TV series rather than be a stand alone film. (I know that there is a series; I don't know which came first). But within those constraints, it's not bad. The magic effects were generally well done; the earth bending might have used a little more imagination, but the other elements were handled well. I liked the fight scene with Aang and the Blue Spirit. I liked the fact that there was friction within the Fire Nation; I'd have liked to see more of that within and between the other nations. I'd probably see the sequel.

Random Walk

2012-01-10T22:31:00.003-05:00

As part of my goals for the year, I'm reading nonfiction, which includes books related to finance. Random Walk Down Wall Street was the first one for the year, and it was interesting, but 90% of it can be summed up by the Amazon review:

Since stock prices cannot be predicted in the short term, argues Malkiel, individual investors are better off buying and holding onto index funds than meddling with securities or actively managing mutual funds. Not only will a broad range of index funds outperform a professionally managed portfolio in the long run, but investors can avoid expense charges and trading costs, which decrease returns.

He adds that an index fund which includes small caps is likely to be better than the S&P, and that reliable profit is the realm of the long term investor. If you like day trading, that's fine, but recognize that you're gambling rather than investing.

Vampire Empire: The Greyfriar

2012-01-08T23:21:00.003-05:00

In 1870, vampires arose in the northern climes and attacked, driving humans out of Europe; the survivors fled to the equatorial regions, because vampires couldn't tolerate heat. Princess Adele is heir to the Equatorial Empire. Her airship is attacked, and she is captured by a notorious vampire war leader. Senator Clark, the pushy and obnoxious American war hero, plans an attack on the London vampires to rescue Adele. Rival factions of the vampire court jockey for power with Adele as a bargaining chip. And the masked swashbuckler Greyfriar hunts through vampire-occupied England.

I got this out of the library because it was marked as "steampunk". The main thing that bothered me about it is that a key vampire figure is inexplicably sympathetic with humans. I understand that the authors wanted to make this particular character sympathetic and interesting, but according to their own view of vampires, this is like having a wolf who really wants to be a sheep. I might be able to swallow it if the authors gave a reason for this vampire's unique interest, but they don't seem to have realized quite what degree of anomaly this is. Perhaps they're planning to explain it all in a later book, but it really weakens this one. Other than that, it was okay; something to check out of the library but not to buy.

On this day

2012-01-07T23:18:00.002-05:00

On January 7, 1610, Galileo made his first observation of the moons of Jupiter.

In 1785, two men flew across the English Channel, from Dover to Calais, by balloon. Note that it was in 1801 that that John Jervis wrote of Napoleon's invasion force, "I do not say, my Lords, that the French will not come. I say only they will not come by sea."

Snow

2012-01-03T23:01:00.002-05:00

This afternoon we had the first snow of this winter. Sooner than I'd hoped for--I'd have liked another couple of weeks of warm weather, and some years we get that--but it's much better than the snowpocalypse we had last year. And this was (thus far!) just a few light flurries, no accumulation.

Funds

2012-01-03T21:34:00.002-05:00

One of my goals is to pay more attention to my 401k at work, which is small enough that I can play around with it without worrying. Shares and their values right now are:

Akre Focus (AKREX): 13.45
Artisan International: 20.33
Cullen High Dividend Equity: 12.99
American Funds Europac R5: 35.95
UMB Scout International (UMBWX): 28.77

Crafts and Works

2012-01-02T20:56:00.001-05:00

Today was mostly getting projects done around the house. Pulling the door off the deck storage closet, repairing it and reinstalling. Packing up the Christmas decorations and putting them in storage. Adding a bit of insulation in the attic.

One of the things I've had in mind for a while is to make decorative stuff (or semi-decorative--dice tower, for instance) from acrylic. So I got the jigsaw out, put in a fine tooth blade and started cutting a 2.5mm thick sheet, which was fairly fragile. Need to be careful to keep the sheet from vibrating, and advance the saw steadily, and don't try to cut sharp (30°) angles. Broke some pieces, but that's okay as all I was doing was getting the feel for it, not trying to create a work of art. 6mm sheet should be a lot easier to work with. I also experimented with flame polishing the edges, although I need to get a small propane torch do a good job of that.

Goals for 2012

2012-01-01T09:40:00.003-05:00

My goals for 2011 were:

Complete first editing pass on A Knife in the Dark by end of January. (Not completed)
Write 110,000 words of fiction this year. That means 50K for NaNoWriMo plus 500 words per 3 days; posts on Ficton count but posts here do not. (Not completed. 30K words for NaNoWriMo)
Weight 190 lb by end of March, and stay there. (Haven't been monitoring. At 211 now, which is down from 220)
Put up 7 posts per week, counting both here and Ficton. (327 posts = 6.29 per week. Almost there)!
Take a major trip (Anasazi and Grand Canyon). (Done!)
One mini adventure per two weeks; generally this will be "go to a new place" or "try a new food", although it also includes ultralight flight, taking a martial arts class, and making an acrylic artwork. (Not monitored)
Read one significant non-fiction work per month. (Not monitored)
Get my naval miniatures painted--enough for the Hughes v Suffren campaign. (Not done)
Complete one wargame battle per month, even if solo. (Done, although most of the battles were in September and October. See Battle Honors blog)
Acquire a rapier or similar weapon. (Done!)

So. Some failures, some success, some "I wasn't counting". Goals for this year:

Financial: check and adjust mutual funds every month
Complete Untitled Napoleonic Fantasy Starring Chadwick Awesome.
Write 110,000 words of fiction this year. That means 50K for NaNoWriMo plus 500 words per 3 days; posts on Ficton count but posts here do not.
Weight 190 lb by end of March, and stay there.
Put up 7 posts per week, counting both here and Ficton.
One mini adventure per two weeks; generally this will be "go to a new place" or "try a new food", although it also includes ultralight flight, taking a martial arts class, and making an acrylic artwork.
Read one significant non-fiction work per month.
Complete one wargame battle per month, even if solo, and write AARs.

Blog stats

2011-12-31T22:13:00.001-05:00

Wrapping up the year.

294 posts here, plus 16 at Ficton, plus 20 at Battle Honors = 327.

"All time" stats, not counting the two sub-blogs:

13029 pageviews. Last year the total was 4369, so my net views for 2011 was 8660, or 23 a day.

Important events of 2011

2011-12-31T14:56:00.002-05:00

Important to me, that is.

February: Shock
March: Rapier
April: Gwen came from Australia to visit
May: My grandfather passed away ; Josh graduated from college.
June: Father's Day
August: Trip to Arizona, including Canyon de Chelly and Grand Canyon
September: Diana got braces; I bravely got on a jet ski with Josh.
October: Josh, having Reasons to Move to Australia, headed across the Pacific.
November: National Novel Writing Month and Thanksgiving
December: Christmas

Spellbound

2011-12-31T13:40:00.005-05:00

Spellbound is the second book in Larry Correia's Grimnoir series, set in the 1930s era with the addition of superpowered Actives. You need to read Hard Magic first to understand Spellbound. This is nothing to complain about-- see my review or just note that Hard Magic has, in Larry's words:

a teleporting magic ninja fight on top of a flaming pirate dirigible in a world with bear cavalry, gangsters, wizards, and John Browning fighting the magic samurai of Imperial Japan with Tesla super weapons"

so you should want to read it. And if you don't, what's wrong with you?

The Grimnoir are a society of Actives who are trying to protect normals from abusive Actives, and Actives from hostile normals. Jake Sullivan is former solider, former private eye, who looks like a big dumb bruiser. He is now a Knight of the Grimnoir, and an Active Heavy (more formally, a Gravity Spiker). When someone attempts to frame the Grimnoir for an assassination attempt on the President, and when Jake gets a phone call from an enemy he already killed ... well, things get interesting.

Larry's other series is Monster Hunter, and one thing that bugs me about that series is that the protagonist has been granted a one-of-a-kind divine mandate by authorial fiat. (This happens in other successful series, but it bugs me there too). The Grimnoir series doesn't have that problem; Heavy Jake does have super powers, but so do about 1% of the rest of the population. He's better at using them, but only because he's smart and self disciplined.

Buy it in hardback. Read it on nights when you don't have to go to work the next morning.

Amazon

2011-12-31T13:12:00.004-05:00

Amazon is awesome. Tom ordered two books for me around Thanksgiving; one arrived here, one arrived somewhere that the delivery service thought was here. Yesterday at 6:45 Tom emailed Amazon to say that the missing book was missing, do we need to order another copy or what? Amazon Customer Service apologized for the mishap (which wasn't their fault to begin with), promised to send a new copy and promised to send it Next Day Air. And it arrived at 10:52 this morning. Can't get better than that.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

2011-12-31T01:24:00.002-05:00

The idea was interesting, but the execution was lacking. It's an action film, but some of the action just doesn't make sense--it feels too contrived. My Suspenders of Disbelief were overstretched, so to speak. Jekyll was okay but why was Hyde such a nice guy? When did Nemo get to be a martial artist? Why blow up that much of Venice? How did the characters learn to drive cars? Why did the villain go to all that trouble when he had superweapons already? Given who the villain was, why would he say "There will be more like me"? Why did he move to Russia?

Further...in a good film, the characters have to make choices. Am I going to throw in my lot with the Rebellion even though it means I have to take a fighter to the Death Star? Do I want Buttercup bad enough to storm the castle when I can barely move? In this movie, though, each character (except Quatermain) got a couple of lines of token "why I'm fighting" at the beginning, but that was it. Not a lot of agonizing over "why are we doing this? Is this right or wrong?", not enough "I could give up and move to Cleveland but instead I'm going to risk my life to accomplish this."

It felt too busy, particularly during the fight at the Evil Fortress. We have a kind of climactic scene between one hero and the traitor, we have another one with Nemo and Hyde, we have another one with Quatermain...okay, I know you have to show why this character and that character and all are extraordinary, but it was just too much. Build up the climax, make it big and impressive, and be done.
But if you want a campy pseudo-superhero group in 1899 , this may be for you.

2011-12-29T23:23:00.002-05:00

The marsh is all golden brown now, with no tinge of green. The moon and Jupiter setting in the west. Earlier, one lone duck was in the water, bobbing under and popping back up.

Josh's expedition

2011-12-27T23:29:00.001-05:00

Josh is camping for the week at Wilson's Promontory, which is the cape southeast of Melbourne. I gather spear fishing will be involved.

Tintin

2011-12-27T00:37:00.002-05:00

We saw Tintin The Movie tonight. It was enjoyable, although nothing profound; in fact, that was the main problem with it. There wasn't much introspection, and what there was seemed a bit forced; there was no pondering of "why am I risking my life to do this?" There was plenty of action, though: "a few more thugs with guns hunting for our hero", and "yet another chase scene". There were a few inconsistencies or storytelling issues: why did they show Haddock shooting the dam, when it had so little effect? How did the tank get involved? Why did Sir Francis Haddock need to make a mysterious message to tell where the treasure was? But the animation was impressive.

Christmas

2011-12-25T21:42:00.003-05:00

Stockings and coffee, then a few presents, then walk the mutt. As I was coming back to the house with Zoe, I saw one of our neighbors arriving. She had departed Virginia Beach last night and driven 300 miles to drop off her daughters with her former husband, then she turned around and drove through the night to get back this morning. Glad I've never had to do that.

Breakfast was eggs and sausage, then the rest of the presents. Notable gifts included a Sarcasm Ball (because I am unable to come up with sarcasm on my own), three scarves (from three different people), four sweaters, plus books including The Empire Strikes Out, Snuff (the latest Discworld book), Spellbound (sequel to Larry Correia's Hard Magic), and A Brief History of the Universe. The big present for me was new struts and tires for the Camry.

Since Diana should be staying off her feet, I made Christmas dinner solo. I considered the house specialty-- beurre d'arachide et confiture -- but decided the occasion called for a little extra effort. The menu:

roast turkey breast and gravy
mashed potatoes
cranberries
petite pois
steamed carrots
stuffing with sausage, onions and mushrooms
yeast rolls
vanilla roasted pears with raspberries
pink moscato

And I managed to get it all ready at the same time.

Post turkey nap, phone calls from friends and relatives, and reading my new books. Nice peaceful Christmas day.

Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T23:50:00.002-05:00

Got up too early because Zoe was feeling frisky. So I got tea, the house properly cleaned, more tea, made a sherry cake, picked up a few things for Christmas dinner, more tea. Diana dropped off gifts with the neighbors, five packages arrived on our doorstep, friends stopped by, and we had our Christmas call with Josh, Gwen and Gwen's mom. Candlelight service at church, with a drive by some of the more elaborately decorated houses on our way home.

For our Christmas Eve gifts, Diana chose the package from Gwen's mom, with several things related to blue wrens; mine was a new frying pan, which bodes well for sausage and eggs tomorrow morning.

Last year we were in the mountains and had snow--lots and lots--and the year before we caught a bit of snow at Tabitha's place, but this year it's about 40° and no snow in sight.

We have the nutcracker soldiers up, the stockings hung, the tree decorated...still feels odd without Josh here.

Christmas Eve Eve

2011-12-23T23:19:00.003-05:00

What a week. It's been weird not having Josh home for Christmas--first time since 1989.

And Diana came back from Montreal in a wheelchair, due to a bad knee exacerbated by arthritis. So I've been walking the dog, getting Christmas gifts and prescriptions and groceries, taking the car in for repairs, doing much of the housework, making dinner, and carrying stuff up and down stairs as needed. Oh, and going to work. It's been busy. I have no idea how single parents cope with a regular week, much less all the stuff for Christmas.

But it's all done. Time for a long winter's nap. Not a creature was stirring...

Dogs and screens

2011-12-21T23:27:00.003-05:00

We've had several conversations with Josh by Skype, and in some of them Josh has said "Hi Zoe!" However, The Mutt doesn't respond. She can certainly hear; drop a bit of bacon on the kitchen floor and she will rush downstairs. And it's not like she doesn't know who Josh is; if he were here, Zoe would be bouncing around and romping with him. So does she just not recognize voices? Do dogs need a smell-o-vision? Does Skype not carry the full frequency audio range, so it doesn't sound real to her? I think I detect the opportunity for a multimillion dollar research grant...

Movies

2011-12-19T00:53:00.001-05:00

Watched The Golden Compass and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

I'd heard The Golden Compass is pro-atheist and specifically anti-Catholic. The book may well be, but it didn't come across that strongly in the film, certainly not as blatantly as in V for Vendetta. The Big Evil Organization was apparently intended to be the Church but was actually rather more like your average Communist dictatorship. There is a certain irony to it: the author was preaching atheism because he was afraid the Church might act the way atheistic governments do. And of course there's the alethiometer, which is a mystical device, and only a few people have the esoteric knowledge necessary to use it; this reminds me of Gnosticism, or for that matter our "ruling elites" who "know what's best for us" because they've been to Harvard, or some such.
The film was watchable, once, but not memorable. I ended up feeling that the protagonist was in need of a spanking or two.

The Mummy was the third in the series; instead of taking place in Egypt, this one is set in China, with the terra cotta army, the Great Wall, and Shangri La making an appearance. I was disappointed that Rachel Weisz didn't play Evy this time around, but otherwise it was fine; not a life-changing epic, but a fun movie nonetheless.

Egg Nests

2011-12-17T17:32:00.000-05:00

I attempted to make Egg Nests, although it didn't quite work out as the egg white didn't get stiff enough. I added the salt at the beginning, and a few drops of lime juice, and it got fluffy but not to the point where I could make a mound of it without it spreading out all over. And then I beat in the parmesan instead of folding it in, which didn't help. Eventually I spooned it into a pair of ramekins, added the egg yolks, and put them into the microwave. But I put bacon beside it, so it was fine.

Tea Party

2011-12-16T22:57:00.003-05:00

On December 16, 1773, a group of Sons of Liberty members dumped crates of tea into Boston Harbor.

In 1811, the New Madrid (Missouri) earthquakes struck, causing parts of the Mississippi to flow backward, awakening people in Pittsburgh and Norfolk, and ringing church bells in Toronto and Boston.

Also, a notable international economist was born in Virginia Beach in 1988.

RIP Christopher Hitchens

2011-12-16T10:00:00.001-05:00

Sometimes brilliant, sometimes incoherent, but always, as far as I could tell, fearless.

Words vs Action

2011-12-15T08:32:00.000-05:00

“One's feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions
which bring results. ”

Florence Nightingale (1820–1910)

Close Action AAR

2011-12-11T16:05:00.002-05:00

A USS Franklin-centric view of yesterday's combat is on Battle Honors.

Police Use of Force

2011-12-05T20:50:00.001-05:00

I don't usually link to HuffPo but this is worth reading.

Radley Balko: SWAT Raids, Stun Guns, And Pepper Spray: Why The Government Is Ramping Up The Use Of Force

Storms of Steel

2011-12-03T17:13:00.001-05:00

The After Action Report on my first scenario with Conflict of Heroes: Storms of Steel posted on Battle Honors

NaNoWriMo

2011-12-01T19:47:00.002-05:00

Ploughed through 4400 words in the last two days to end up at 30,006 for the month. That isn't 50k, but it is 30k more than I had when I started November.

The East Coast Retreat Dilemma

2011-11-28T01:28:00.000-05:00

The East Coast Retreat Dilemma:

If you live on the East Coast, and civilization collapses, where do you go?

NaNoWriMo

2011-11-27T22:18:00.002-05:00

Hit 25K tonight, which bodes not well for hitting 50K by the end of the month! But I am tolerably pleased with the 25k I have.

Thanksgiving in Australia

2011-11-27T20:05:00.003-05:00

Thanksgiving is not a purely USA holiday, in that Canada celebrates it (in October, because by late November they're having blizzards and what they're thankful for at that point is that the polar bears haven't broken in); however, Australia does not. So, in the spirit of correcting this obvious oversight, Josh and Gwen made their own Thanksgiving feast. A twelve pound turkey, mashed potatoes, herbed carrots, stuffing, cauliflower au gratin, green bean casserole, sweet corn, rolls, gravy, butterscotch pies, cider and wine. Not sure which relatives were there, but judging from the Skype conversation, it was a great success. The start of a tradition?

Toyota

2011-11-25T00:34:00.000-05:00

My Camry rolled over 150,000 miles today

Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T22:55:00.000-05:00

Drove out to my mom and dad's place in the mountains of Virginia, about 300 miles / 500km /5.5 hours. Mom and Dad, Elizabeth and David and their kids (Julia, Jack) and guest Oliver, and Tabitha and Chris and their kids (Ian, Kathleen, Emma, Luke), plus Zoe and two other dogs.

Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, zucchini casserole, carrot souffle, cranberry fruit salad, yeast rolls, black eyed peas, corn on the cob, plus a few other items. There were several desserts, but I concentrated on Tabitha's butterscotch silk pie.

After that, the kids showed off their skills at piano or gymnastics, and then we had a couple of family board games (specifically Qwirkle), and then things quieted down. Later in the evening, you could hear dogs--coyotes?--howling.

Real Rate of Inflation

2011-11-20T23:23:00.002-05:00

I was looking around today to see what the real rate of inflation is--not that I don't trust the Government to tell the absolute truth, you understand, but just to check.

Quick introduction at World Net Daily. Longer one at ShadowStats.

Chart at ShadowStats. What the government says now is that it's about 3.5%. If you calculate it the way they did in 1990, the result is about 7%; if you use the 1980 formula, it's 12%.

Power of the Web

2011-11-15T22:02:00.002-05:00

Back in the dark ages--that is to say, when I went to college, early 80's--if you wanted to research something, you went to the library. Maybe you asked a professor or a librarian where to start. Then you went to the card catalog. That was like a database where each record was on a separate, small piece of paper that was not linked to anything else. Then you went and found a book that wasn't quite what you wanted, and either made do with that or looked in the bibliography and hoped you'd find something better. Rinse and repeat.

Want to find out the words to an Egyptian ritual, or how to load a flintlock, or what units were in a battle two hundred years ago? You don't have to spend all day at the library to get the answer. Ten seconds with a search engine, check the top few results, keep moving. We take web searches for granted now, but thirty years ago, twenty years ago, it was magic.

NaNoWriMo

2011-11-12T00:40:00.001-05:00

13181 words. Over a quarter done. Of course, we're over a third into the month, so I have some catching up to do.

Laptop

2011-11-11T22:29:00.003-05:00

I've been looking around for a laptop for a while; today I found a $450 Asus that was reduced to an open-box price of $319, so I picked it up. I believe Asus describes it as "Brown Suit" but I prefer "Mocha color". I suspect I'll end up adding some gears and brass filigree to the case and calling it "Professor Babbage's Patent Galvanic Difference Engine".

Over 9000 !

2011-11-08T00:03:00.001-05:00

Did another 1000 words tonight, which puts me over 9000 for the month.

Kickstarter: Schlock Mercenary game

2011-11-07T23:43:00.001-05:00

Kickstarter page is here; Howard Taylor talks about it here.

Eggnog season

2011-11-07T00:40:00.001-05:00

First eggnog of autumn. Lots of nutmeg. Yum.

Guy Fawkes Day

2011-11-05T18:42:00.001-04:00

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,

Gunpowder treason and plot.

I see no reason

Why gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot.

NaNoWriMo

2011-11-04T23:08:00.002-04:00

Got over 2000 words written today, which brings me to 4207--a bit behind pace, as I should be at 6670, but I'll make up some of the deficit tomorrow. Our Hero has discovered a mystery...

Shark

2011-11-02T23:11:00.002-04:00

At work, sometimes I get up and walk around, just to be away from my desk for a couple of minutes; sometimes I walk through the sales floor. One of the sales guys said "Every time you do that, I feel like I'm seeing a shark fin slicing through the water. I get this sudden urge to look around and count my kids and make sure they're all still there."

And that's as it should be. :-)

Halloween

2011-10-31T22:57:00.002-04:00

A lot of people wore costumes to work. I said that I was costumed as a human; several people remarked that it wasn't very convincing. Ah, well.

Car Mirror

2011-10-29T13:55:00.003-04:00

While I was away in Arizona, not only did Virginia suffer from tornadoes, earthquakes, and hurricanes, it also had a car accident. Involving my car. Most of the damage was to panels, but the driver's side mirror got clipped and was being held on by duct tape--the mount broken in a way that wasn't feasible to epoxy back together. The repair quote was $176.40 for the part, and more for the labor to install it. But we haz teh Interwebz....

Watch a video on how to install the mirror. No exotic equipment is required, just Phillips and flat blade screwdrivers and a 10mm wrench.
Locate the part for $37 including shipping. It's in black.
Determine the official paint color is #931 "Frosted Iris".
Find a local paint shop that will mix 931, which Sherwin Williams will. $31 for paint, sprayer, and gloss coat.
Mask the new mirror, then paint, paint, paint, glosscoat, glosscoat.
Take out three screws to pull back the door interior
Pull out the old mirror's electrical connection; unbolt mirror.
Install new mirror, insert make electrical connections
Test mirror adjustment, remove masking
Tight door panel

Did the painting last weekend; got the mirror installed today, during a break in the rain.

NaNoWriMo Pre-Kick-Off Party

2011-10-28T22:29:00.002-04:00

At Kelley's Tavern again this year. Saw some of the same people back again this year.

Still need a plot, but hey, I have days and days before NaNoWriMo actually kicks off.

St Crispin's Day

2011-10-25T23:35:00.003-04:00

October 25th is St Crispin's Day, best known for the Battle of Agincourt although the Battle of Balaclava--known for the stand of the Thin Red Line and the Charge of the Light Brigade--was also on this day. The St Crispan's speech from Henry V :

This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,

Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named,

And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

He that shall live this day, and see old age,

Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors,

And say, "To-morrow is Saint Crispian."

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,

And say, "These wounds I had on Crispin's day."

Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,

But he'll remember with advantages

What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,

Familiar in his mouth as household words,

Harry the King, Bedford, and Exeter,

Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,

Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.

This story shall the good man teach his son;

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be remembered-

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition:

And gentlemen in England now a-bed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon St Crispin's Day.

The Three Musketeers (2011 version)

2011-10-25T21:50:00.001-04:00

I can do no better than to quote Howard "Schlock Mercenary" Taylor:

Once we're done scrolling past a neat, toy-soldiers-on-map version of Europe, The Three Musketeers gives us a steampunk scuba diver emerging from the canals of Venice with repeating crossbows.

Okay, so it's going to be THAT kind of movie. I mean, if this is seventeenth-century Italy we can't even call the scuba rig "steampunk" because there aren't any steam engines yet.

Well, at least your expectations have been set. It's going to be THAT kind of movie. This isn't historical fiction by a long shot. It misses the romanticized historical mark by a wide margin as well. What you've got here is full-on, brass-balls to the clockwork-secret-passage-wall alternate history. And if you can make it past the waterproof repeating crossbows, you're in for a real ride.

Gnomes of Zurich part 2

2011-10-23T20:01:00.002-04:00

As mentioned a couple of years ago, a lot of the world's capital is controlled by surprisingly few investors. Now a new article lists the top companies and explains why so much money flows through so few connections. It's not a plot by the Illuminati. Well, it's not necessarily a plot. Fnord.

Dead Six

2011-10-23T19:46:00.004-04:00

Just got Dead Six, by Larry Correia and Mike Kupari.

From Larry's blog, a description of the book:

The plot is big. The action is big, but we kept it plausible. The tactics/equipment stuff is solid. One of my proof readers is a guy that Jack Bauer would hang out with. We did our homework. Considering that we wrote this years ago and put in the Arab Spring, a narcotrafficante revolution in Mexico, and stealth helicopters, none of which (we knew) existed at the time, I’d say we were at least semi-plausible in our brainstorming process. We took some liberties with reality, all authors do, but we tried not to make them stupid liberties.

Also from Larry's blog, a description of his co-author:

This is Mike’s first book, and it is a darn good one that deserves to be read. For those of you who don’t know, Mike is an EOD Technician, currently defusing roadside bombs in Afghanistan. He will still be in Afghanistan, risking his life and being awesome, when his first novel appears in stores. Places like NPR can talk about thriller writer street cred, but Mike plays high-explosive chess against terrorist IEDs before breakfast. Most first time authors are super excited to do their first book signings, but Mike can’t because he’s deployed… Think about that for a second… He can’t do book signings for the really nifty book he wrote because he is too busy DEFUSING MURDER BOMBS.
For most authors, the most exciting part of our day is when we spill Coke Zero on our keyboard. EOD are complete lunatics that do something so absurdly dangerous that complete snake eating warriors look at them and say "F’ that noise, let the dude in the big suit play with the booby trapped death machine."
Mike is humble. You probably won’t ever hear him talk about that kind of thing. Luckily for him, I’m not humble at all. :-)

The Headlight Saga

2011-10-23T19:46:00.001-04:00

Generally I prefer to do a repair myself, if I can, instead of paying someone else to do it. There are times when the frustration level makes me reconsider my decision...

A headlight went out on the van. I've changed headlights before, no problem. Undo the locking ring, pull out the bulb, work the bulb out of the socket, then replace it with a new bulb (being careful not to touch the glass) and re-install. So, feeling confident, I pick up a #9004 bulb, come home, and open the hood. And discover that in this van, there's not enough room to get your hand behind the bulb to pull it out. Do you have to remove the whole headlight? I come inside and hit the search engine. Yes, you have to remove the whole flipping headlight.

And to do that, you need a 10mm wrench. I spray WD40 and tried pliers. No good. I try a 3/8" wrench (about 9.5mm) and a 7/16" (about 11mm). No good. We search the tool closest; no metric wrenches. Okay, back to the shop and get a 10mm wrench. With that, the top bolt and two nuts come off; the third nut is not quite inaccessible but I can only turn the wrench through 16° of arc at a time, so it takes approximately 26 hours of hunching over the car to slowly, slowly work the nut off. Mosquitoes gnaw on me. I finally get the assembly off, pull the locking ring back, and get the bulb out of the socket. Put the new bulb in the socket and test it--yes, it works. Put the bulb in the headlight and try to seat the locking ring. It doesn't seat. Push, twist, turn, no luck. Happy mosquitoes. The sun is setting. Okay, let's take the bulb out of the socket and try this one piece at a time. The bulb doesn't seat. Look at the back side of the headlight--there are three little teeth on the ring, and the bulb has notches which should match those teeth. Twist, rotate, push, no good. The mosquitoes have called their cousins and aunts. I compare the new bulb to the old bulb--the notches are almost, but not quite, identical. It is 5:49 pm. I call the parts store. They're closing at 6pm. Yes, the #9004 is the correct bulb, they say. I drive down (in the other car), arriving at 5:56, and go check the bulbs. Here's a Sylvania 9004, here's another brand, here's a third, the notches are the same on all of them. I look at the original bulb again--hark! It's a 9007, not a 9004! Mystery solved. Do I have the receipt for the original? No...but if you'd like to stay open even farther past your quitting time than it is now, I can go back home and get it. Heh. The kid hands me the new bulb and I return to the van. The bulb slides home, the locking ring locks, the socket snaps in place. Test the light, it works. Put the assembly back in place, tighten the nuts, we're done.

Three morals to the story:

You will solve a problem faster by looking at it and figuring it out, rather than by continuing to try to force it when force didn't work the first time.
Use the right tool. In retrospect, I should have gotten 10mm socket wrench instead of a normal wrench; that would have made two of the nuts a lot easier.
Sometimes you should just pay the shop $25 and let them do it.

Melancholy

2011-10-23T09:30:00.000-04:00

“ There is no greater cause of melancholy than idleness. ”

— Robert Burton

10 Seconds of My 15 Minutes of Fame:

2011-10-20T20:30:00.003-04:00

I got mentioned by Professor Reynolds of Instapundit:

CLOSE CALLS: Billion-Ton Comet May Have Missed Earth by a Few Hundred Kilometers in 1883: A reanalysis of historical observations suggest Earth narrowly avoided an extinction event just over a hundred years ago. Shades of, well, you know.
UPDATE: Reader Chris DeBoe writes: “Shades of The Peshawar Lancers by SM Stirling, which posits a comet hitting North America and Europe during Victoria’s reign, and the British government relocating to India. And the Great Game still goes on.” Several readers made that connection, which I should have caught. I read that book and it was good — one of several that made my list of recommended alt-history reading.

Planning Australia

2011-10-19T22:08:00.002-04:00

Diana is already planning our trip to Australia. That didn't take long. (Probably not actually going until March 2012 or so).

Thomas the Rhymer

2011-10-17T21:07:00.002-04:00

I'm still not sure what to make of Ellen Kushner's Thomas the Rhymer. It's a retelling of the Childe Ballad story: Thomas meets the Queen of the Elves and asks for a kiss; she takes him to the Fairy Lands to be her lover; seven years later he returns to the mortal lands, with the gift of prophecy. He becomes known as True Thomas--he is unable to say anything except the truth.

It is not epic. No battles, not cast of thousands, no clever system of magic, no life or death decisions. Just a few people, interacting with each other, and one of them is the elf queen. It is definitely not a "buy multiple hardback copies", but then again, not many books get that rating. It is well written, lyrical; certainly the author deserves some support, so it comes in above "buy secondhand" or "check library". I'm going to call it "buy paperback" and expect some disagreement.

Across the Pacific

2011-10-15T19:53:00.002-04:00

Josh had intended to fly from LA to Sydney on United, but the flight was overbooked and he didn't make it on. So here he is, solo in LAX, having been awake since 5:30am, and it's now 1:30am the following night (all times in US East Coast time, not local) and no plane. A lot of people would have taken a shuttle to the first available hotel and tried again the next day, but Josh is not willing to be stymied by a little detail like "there are no more planes until tomorrow." He checks other options with United--could he go from LAX to San Francisco and then to Sydney, or from LAX to Auckland to Sydney? United has flights but no spaces that he can use with his ticket. Meanwhile, while he deals with United, he has me check with Qantas; Qantas is excellent and they had a few seats but they don't take stand-bys, the cost of a ticket was $2500, and also he'd only have twenty minutes to get his luggage from United and haul it across terminals to Qantas. That won't do. He gets his gear back from United and marches over to Cathay Pacific. Yes, they'd be happy to book him for tomorrow night. "No", Josh says, "I have no interest in waiting till tomorrow night." Josh had the nickname "Bear" before he was large, bulky and furry; now that he is all of the above, he's even more ursine. He digs his fingers into the counter, leaving claw marks like a grizzly, and glowers with bloodshot eyes glowing red. Oh, well, sir, says Cathay Pacific, actually, we have a flight leaving in half an hour.

Josh got on it. Departed 4:30am Friday, arrived at Hong Kong at 7pm Friday night, changed planes and arrived in Sydney at 6:30am Saturday--I'm assuming that's what Gwen's text "THERE HE IS!" meant. :-)

When he got to Hong Kong he opened a chat to let me know he'd made it.

I replied "Yay! I'll alert the media."

Josh: "Make sure you mention how awesome Cathay Pacific is.

Me: "Will do. I'm proud of your determination on getting a flight."

Josh: "Bear. I just clawed at people until one of them handed me a boarding pass."

Me: "I was going to say you remind me of Mile Vorkosigan"--Miles is a character famous for "forward momentum", being totally focused on his mission and not stopping merely because it's impossible. One of Josh's favorite characters, by the way.

Josh: "Bear Miles. Miles Bearkosigan!"

Departed (or: Reasons to Move to Australia)

2011-10-13T21:42:00.006-04:00

Took Josh to Fairfax yesterday, with a stop in Fredericksburg for lunch with his grandparents (who had driven five hours to get to Fredburg), then visiting with a couple of his friends--Caroline, the other Josh, and Richard. Richard came by the hotel and Josh and I may have persuaded him to move to Australia also, using arguments such as:

"Hot babes, Richard. Hot. Babes."
"You can play seven man Diplomacy and you won't lose any friends over it, because they won't be your friends yet." (Richard said "I'd say you're the only person in the world who would make this argument, but I'm sure your dad would make it too." Which I would).
"Australia has a labor shortage."
"You're in DC, Richard. Number one target in the world. You know how many terrorist plots have gotten foiled in Melbourne? None. Because there aren't any."
"Kangaroo. Kangaroo. Tastes delicious and it's good for you."
"No one will mistake you for your twin brother any more."
"Close Action. With my brilliant tactics and your Kunkel Fail Field, we'll devastate the opposition. We can even tile the floor with blue hexagons to match the Close Action maps. Close Action, Richard. You know you want it."
"Did I mention the hot babes?"
"You like wine? You think the Australians export the good stuff?"
"Snow? Yes, there's snow. Gwen goes skiing in the Alps. The Australian Alps. Yes, they have them."
"Melbourne is one of the top three cities in the world to live in. In. The. World, Richard."
"You have a cat? You can bring your cat, but you could also get a wombat. There is no cooler pet than a wombat, Richard. None. But bring your cat carrier if you must."
"You can go scuba diving with me."
"You don't have to go. Making a decision like this is not for everyone. In fact, millions of people have failed at life and been completely blotted out by the tide of history. No pressure."
"You want to climb to the top of a bridge? You can do that. You want an opera house? Got one."
"People are going to be lining up for the privilege of being my roommate. There will be fistfights. You know this. You need to get your name on the lease now."
"The Great Barrier Reef. It's great. It's a reef. It's a barrier. It has glowing fish. Clams. Purple luminescent clams, Richard. How can you say no to purple glowing clams? And China is close by. You can pop over and see the Great Wall, which is like the Great Barrier Reef was before it got water and fish and was pretty."
"Basically, I'm not hearing any reason you should stay, except you don't want your parents upset. But you'll be in Australia. Are they going to call you to fuss about it, at three dollars a minute for a phone call? They are not. Come to Australia, Richard. Coooome .... tooooo ..... Australiaaaa ...."

Richard escaped before actually signing anything but he looked like he was seriously considering it.

We got up at 5:30am, got an approximation of breakfast, and took Josh through the rain to Dulles. He was eager to go; Diana and I got a little misty-eyed but held it together.

Right now he's in Los Angeles, waiting for the plane to Sydney.

Packing

2011-10-11T23:23:00.002-04:00

We took Josh to El Taco Loco for his last dinner before departure. The owner sat at our table with us for a few minutes, and paid for Joshua's dinner, and told him to look for a good restaurant location in Melbourne.

Three suitcases and the scuba bag are by the front door.

Bookstore

2011-10-09T17:08:00.002-04:00

Josh and I went to the used book store on Great Neck at First Colonial. After hunting through the shelves for an hour, he had a stack and we went through them together. "I haven't read any of these. This was good. I know I read that one but I don't recall anything about it. That one was fun to read once, I don't know that it's worth reading twice. That one is a classic but I'm certain you can find it in Oz if you want it." Between the two of us, we got about $60 of books. And one more priceless hour together.

Aqua-Pathan

2011-10-08T17:19:00.002-04:00

We went to lunch with Tom Paul and his grandmother at Bubba's, just east of the Lesner Bridge on the Lynnhaven Bay. I had the Bubba burger, which is a hamburger plus bacon, cheese and a lump of crabmeat. The crabmeat doesn't add anything that I can tell; the hamburger is cooked "well done" regardless of whether you wanted it medium or medium well. But it had bacon, so that was a good point.

The view out across Lynnhaven Bay is nice, and you get to see boats motoring right past the restaurant. Josh wants a rowboat with four jet engines, giving a nice healthy power-to-weight ratio. He also wants a sailing yacht, although he's willing to have a couple of propellers below the surface. It should be big enough that he can put his rocket-boat on it. And a helicopter, with should be able to carry a motorcycle. He's going for the triphibian approach. One of the vehicles was also supposed to be submersible but I'm not sure whether that was the yacht or the helicopter...

After that we went to the beach and Josh took half an hour on a jet ski. Zooming along, bounding over the waves like he was riding a horse at full gallop. The Aqua Pathan rides again! There were half a dozen other jet skis out there but it was always easy to tell which one was Josh's. "Which one is going fastest?--that's Josh".

There was a pod of dolphins in the Bay, which we couldn't see from the beach, but Josh did.

We played the Salamanca scenario from Command and Colors Napoleonics again, and Josh's Brits beat my French again.

Concentration of Wealth

2011-10-08T10:35:00.002-04:00

"I fear a concentration of wealth, regardless of any improvements alleged to happen because of it."

So we're agreed. The government should be deprived of assets and income. I mean, is there a more frightening concentration of wealth than the state itself, with armed force and law to enforce its monopoly?

--Michael Z Williamson

Lepanto

2011-10-07T20:24:00.001-04:00

On this day in 1571, Don John of Austria led a contingent of ships from Spain, Venice, Savoy, Genoa, the Knights of Malta and the Papal States-- 208 ships, 23000 soldiers--against a Turkish fleet of 251 ships and 31500 soldiers. Despite being outnumbered and having a dis-unified command--several of of the factions in his fleet were hostile to each other--the Christian fleet defeated the Ottomans, capturing or destroying over 180 ships and freeing over 8000 Christian galley slaves. It was the last significant naval action fought in the Mediterranean between galleys, and marked the beginning of the end of Ottoman expansion.

Wet suit

2011-10-07T00:44:00.002-04:00

We got Josh a wet suit today, as a pre-Christmas present--since Christmas will be warm and sunny in Oz, he should be able to use it then.

I understand the Australian contingent is getting some exotic cable deal so Josh can watch real football and feel a little more at home.

A Jobs Agenda - By Kevin D. Williamson - The Corner - National Review Online

2011-10-05T23:29:00.000-04:00

A Jobs Agenda - By Kevin D. Williamson - The Corner - National Review Online:

"Once you figure out why your cell phone gets better and cheaper every year but your public schools get more expensive and less effective, you can apply that model to answer a great many questions about public policy. Not all of them, but a great many."

and

"I was down at the Occupy Wall Street protest today, and never has the divide between the iPhone world and the politics world been so clear: I saw a bunch of people very well-served by their computers and telephones (very often Apple products) but undeniably shortchanged by our government-run cartel education system. And the tragedy for them — and for us — is that they will spend their energy trying to expand the sphere of the ineffective, hidebound, rent-seeking, unproductive political world, giving the Barney Franks and Tom DeLays an even stronger whip hand over the Steve Jobses and Henry Fords. And they — and we — will be poorer for it."

Sheep

2011-10-03T22:38:00.004-04:00

I just found out tonight that Gwen's job at the Aussie Bureau of Agricultural research is....

"everything sheep-related."

Yes, I'm serious.

Those of you who are aware of Found Me A Sheep and related activities may now ROFL.