Interesting

Slightly morbid, but somewhat interesting info I found on the internet.

Top five worst gun massacres.

Top 5 worst US gun massacres.

Top 5 worst school shootings.

OK, enough of the morbid wanderings.  Time to get back to presents and Christmas music!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!

My thoughts on "I am Adam Lanza's Mother"

I'm a few days behind the curve, between a sick family and work.  I just read the post by Liza Long here - I am Adam Lanza's Mother 

There is a lot that I agree with here.  First, there appears to be very little help for those with mental health issues.  At my agency, we have housed many  misdemeanor inmates who have not had the mental facilities or family to get help.  The deputies will arrest person's with mental issues as opposed to getting them a Temporary Detainment Order.  Once they are incarcerated, mental health will take their sweet time to get to them because, as an inmate, they are no longer a threat to the public and we won't allow them to be a threat to themselves.

We have a handful of transients that we see on a regular basis.  They get arrested. We get them and they are unable to take care of themselves.  We get them medicated and they "return to our world."  By the time they are able to go to court, they are found time served.  And then, on their own, either they can't afford their medication or they feel that they don't need their medication and the vicious cycle starts all over again.

PaperHeart

Here's an interesting video I found, listed as an AMV.  It's called "PaperHeart AMV."

Quite an interesting video.  It's not an "AMV" because it is all original artwork.  Very beautiful.

I'm not all that happy with YouTube's new home page.  It no longer gives me suggestions.  I don't have too many subscriptions ..  yet it keeps all the "recent" videos on top.  It has a few "because you watched X we give you Y" videos...  but they won't change.  They stay the same every time I log on.  The old YouTube made for some fun browsing.  The new set up is rather bad.

Who's sick this time?

Sick kid, sick me, sick wife.  Then the kid get's sick again.  And I don't feel so hot myself.  Again.

Gotta love illness.

A random foreign music video.

I figured I'd link another random music video.  I remember seeing this one a while back. It was one of those "WTF" videos.  The direction does not make sense and obviously I don't speak the language.

But it's fun to watch.

The video is "Ponponpon," sung by Kyary Pamyu Pamyu.  I  had not thought about it in a while but YouTube brought up a similar video on their suggestions page.  When it would not properly play, I followed their link to this one.

YouTube.  It can be as random as Wikipedia.

Travelling with an 18 month old.

Travelling with an 18 month old.

It's interesting.

On our first day of our trip, we often travel in the evening.  Normally this entails us leaving after my wife gets off of work.  I can normally get that day off thus I will be packing and cleaning.  In order to facilitate this I will take my daughter to child care.  See, if she is at home she will try to "help" me.

And that is not really helpful.  Much faster to pack without her "assistance."

The drawback to traveling late is that it gets dark.  And Adorable Preciousness does not like to ride in the child seat "in the dark."  It is very hard to get her to calm down.  She will sleep some, but often things wake her up.  Such as high beams from the big honking vehicle tailgating us.

Crying makes a long trip even longer.

We've found that Adorable Preciousness travels much better in daylight... With one exception.  I can see her in the mirror and she is looking left and right while we are driving, and sometimes her head will follow as if she is looking for something.  Also, she can see me in the mirror and sometimes that will turn into a small game.  However, she can get upset when the sun is in her eyes.  It does not make her happy at all.  When I travel I often have at least one shirt on a hanger, which I try to hang on the window facing the sun.  This often does not work.  I may need to purchase some type of sun shade for her.  When she was just in a "bassinet" style car seat, it was easy enough to leave the handle up and to throw a blanket over her.  That does not work too well with her now.

No post. Nothing to see.

I've been working on a post all day.  Trying to make it read well, even though I have a lack of readers.

I've been getting interrupted all day.

The last straw was that one of my cats  jumped on my computer, stepping on the power button and turning it off.

I think that is the worlds way of saying "give up!"

I'm done.  Nothing to see here.

Made a few changes. No one noticed.

I've not really done much with my blog.  I have no readers, few good ideas, and very little time to post.

Today I was flitting around a lot of blogs that had "died."  Pretty much, they don't get updated any more and no one ever closed them out or made a re-direct.  I was bouncing through several of them and then I opened mine.

And I came to a realization.

They all looked the same.  Same color, same typeface, same layout.

I got to playing around and found that Blogger will let you change the layout of your blog.

I went with the basic "Picture Window" style.  There were only three pictures to choose from but I could also change some of the colors.  I could have changed the typeface but I decided to keep it.  Arial is fairly easy to read.  No need to change type color or the width of the layout or what not.

Hmm... It's the day after the election and all I can post about is changing up my blog.  Probably shows my apathy.  Oh well.

What to do, what to do.

Sometimes, I'm just not motivated.

Like today.

There is a lot that I need to get done.  But I can't figure out what I want to do or in which order I want to do it.  I took Adorable Preciousness in to Day Care in order to have a day to myself to get stuff done.  And I have a process of doing stuff.  My Step 1 of any process is to make a list of what I will be doing.

I'm still making my list.

I know that I need to take down the Halloween decorations.  But I need to see what my wife wants to keep and what she wants to throw away.  My wife sees herself as thrifty but we seriously don't need to keep everything.

I need to get a haircut...  but I've been playing around with growing my hair out.

I thought about Early Voting but I get off at 6pm and I should be able to get to the voting booth before 7.  (As long as nothing happens.)

At least I can wash clothes.  I just don't want to go through all of my daughter's stuff to stain treat it.  Plus since we are making the transition from summer clothes to winter clothes, I need to pack the old stuff up.

It's an hour after lunch, and I'm still playing on the computer.

Music for Halloween IV: Saltatio Mortis by Arany Zoltán

Another video stolen from Chris Ex Machina.  This video is Saltatio mortis by Arany Zoltán.  I love the historic imagery of the video.  Plus I'm a big Hurdy Gurdy fan myself.

Music for Halloween III: Lothlorian - "The Black Cat"

The band Lothlorian out of New Zealand put out a CD a few years ago by the title of "Greenwood Side."  Their CD is available from CD Baby.  I first heard this song while listening to WDVR's "Mists of Avalon" hosted by Walt Haake.

Music for Halloween II: Garmana - "Brun"

This is a creepy tune from the northern reaches.  (IE: From Sweden.)  I had first heard their tune from Chris Ex Machina.  Which lead me to purchase a CD of the band.  (Yes, I still buy CD's which I then rip on to my media player.)

The song is played slow.  It is not in English, but the link I provided offers a translation.

Time for Halloween Videos!

This is a parody of "I'm Sexy and I Know It," by LMFAO.

It was produced by the crew of "Nightmare on 13th" according to the YouTube comments.

"Earning Respect" is not what you think it is.

I work in Corrections.  I've been at my agency for a pretty long time.  I've been involved in a lot of the operations at my facility and I'm cross trained in just about everything.

Suffice it to say, I get transferred around a lot.  A lot of the supervisors want me in their section.  I work hard and I try to not push stuff up the chain of command unless it warrants it.  I have a good reputation at my agency and I do my best to uphold it.  

However, the down side of being transferred all over is that I don't normally get much time in a section.  I stay in each section for approximately a period of two years, so I'm often the "new guy" in the group.  

What irritates me is that there seems to always be a group of people with whom I have to "prove" myself to.  I have to show them that "I've got it."  

Guys, I've got a message for you.  I was dealing with drunks and 10-96's before you were out of high school.  I've dealt with some variation of just about every issue that we could have at our facility.  (I will admit that I've not experienced everything that could happen, and for that I am thankful.)  

But there are those that think everyone needs to "earn their respect."  Nothing I do is good enough to satisfy their ego.  If I'm working with an officer, I give them time to prove themselves.  If they make mistakes I work with them and help them improve.  

Recently we had a situation where an inmate had a shank.  (A shank is slang for an improvised knife.)  Two of the officers who demanded that I earn their respect and I were on scene dealing directly with said inmate.  They rushed on in and were hopping about and shouting, just out of arms reach of the inmate.  I'm behind them and I'm taking note of the scene.  I direct other responding officers into locking the other inmates on the unit down and I directed my focus on the inmate with the shank.  

The inmate had the shank in their hand, but their body language was not threatening.  As a matter of fact, the inmate was not saying anything at all, while my two irritants of an officers were gesturing and babbling like baboons.  

First lesson to take from this.  Concise verbal commands help greatly.  If you are shouting and panicking and talking over someone else, no one knows what you are talking about.  I pulled the first officer behind me and stopped the second officer from talking.  I addressed the inmate quite simply.  "Sir, it's not a good idea to have a weapon in the unit.  Do me a favor, please turn around and place your hands on the wall."  Voila!  Compliance.  The baboons did not realize that the inmate had gotten in over his head and wanted an easy way out.  

Second lesson.  There is the "21 foot rule" for edged weapons.  It's the reaction time against an attack.  My fellow officers had gotten just outside of arms length   They did not even position themselves with the tables between them and the inmate.  I had to put myself in a disadvantaged position just to protect two morons.  

Third lesson?  I'll write more up later, as it's getting late.  

After the incident, my to co-workers come up to me and let me know that I've earned their respect.  Really?  I'm so happy that I now have the respect of two fools who put me in danger.  

I tried to explain to them what they did wrong...  but they would not listen.  They didn't care.  I was hoping that our supervisors would light in to them...  but it was all grins and handshakes.  

I don't need your respect.  Do you think that was awesome?  I've had worse shank encounters the first year I was working!  I've got the scars to prove it!  OK, the scars are really tiny and only show up if I've got a deep tan...  but you get my point.  

Supercell "Odds & Ends" w/Hatsune Miku.

Supercell has a new music video out.  "Odds & Ends" featuring Hatsune Miku.

Oddly enough, the digital pop star gets more video time than the artists themselves.

Holding off on posting.

Posts will be sporadic.  My PC went bust and until I can fix it, I'm stuck with borrowing laptops and using computers at the library.  

A tribute to Owain Phyfe

"Mayhemlok" created a heartwarming tribute to Owain Phyfe and posted it on YouTube.  I share it here.

Talk Like a Pirate Day

Ahoy mateys!  Today be the tenth anniversary of "Talk Like a Pirate Day!"  Take advantage of such a treasured moment.  Pour yourself some grog or rum, pull up a stool, and share tales of high adventure!

Talk Like a Pirate Day

So tired.

I don't post much because it just seems that I have so little time to do so.  I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off and I can't seem to keep up with anything around the house.

I want to write some brilliantly funny or scathing posts.  Most come out reading like dribble.  I have brilliant ideas, but they all turn to vapor as soon as I sit at a keyboard.

I want to write like Piccolo.  Brilliant and funny writing.  Not too many followers, but obviously he has more than I.

I just want to be more creative.  Blah.

Sometimes things go boom.

So...  There was an "item of interest" in the local news.  One of the blogs that I follow (may not be linked on this page yet) is written by an officer who works for the responding agency.

Am I odd just because I got excited because I can figure what he may be writing about next?

Owain Phyfe has passed.

I have just been told that Owain Phyfe has passed away.  Owain was the voice for the New World Renaissance Band and often performed at Renaissance Festivals across the United States.

He reignited my love of historic music.

I'm quite sad.  I shall post more of him later.

Playing Diablo III

I purchased Diablo III when it first came out.  It took me a few days before I installed it.

I never played it until last night.

It's a neat little game.  I played the original Diablo and it brought back some memories of that game.  (I only played a friends Diablo 2 and I recognize some of the elements there also.)  There is a learning curve, but I'm doing better with it.  Movement and attacks are handled by clicking on to the target/point...  so I've had a few problems where I kill my target then I run into the middle of it.  I need to get used to holding down the Shift key which keeps you in place.  I still try to move as in WOW, which is awkward.

Since I was playing a low level, there weren't anyone online I could play with.  I had a friend hop on with me, but she's the only one that I know that plays Diablo any more.  It was fun playing online with her.

I will state that the online factor is what made me love the original Diablo.  I loved it!  While I have always enjoyed video games, I've always preferred playing with other people.  At college there were several arcades but I was always drawn to jump in with other players.  (Street Fighter and Mortal Combat!)  I've often picked up MMORPGS for my PC.  Cooperation has always been what I've loved about such games.  I've little interest in the one player games any more.

Mozart Opera Rock

It's been a little bit since I've posted either music or videos from YouTube that I like, so here is another one!

Another break from WOW.

Taking another break from WOW.  They will have a new patch soon, but I'm rather tired of the grinding.  Being that I have a lot of IRL stuff to do, I don't get the time online in order to get the quests/achievements accomplished.  I only finished the Molten Front dailies on one alt, and it took me much longer because I could not do the dailies every day.

I'm half tempted to try to take the day off when Pandera is released and spend a whole day leveling, but I think I'll pass.

Security Failures at the Y-12 National Security Complex

The Y-12 National Security Complex is located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and it's purpose is related to the support of the United States nuclear weapons.  On July 28, protesters cut through three fences and were able to get into the nuclear plant's uranium storage facility.

Knox News - A lot went wrong at Y-12

Apparently there were multiple issues.  First note, the cameras were not working. For any agency that utilizes cameras for physical security, they must make sure that the cameras are properly positioned and operating.  If one goes out, then the appropriate paperwork must be filed or the proper people contacted in order to make notification that they must be repaired.  Sadly, the major problem in fixing cameras is often money, or the lack there of.

Second, there appeared to be apathy on the part of the staff.  There were alarms going off in the location of the problem, however the security staff failed to respond in a timely manner.  What causes this?  There could be a culture of apathy at the plant.  This could be caused by low morale, or possibly by the fact that the staff had no motivation to do their job properly.  IE: they had no expectations of punishment if their job was done poorly and there was no expectation of rewards if they did their job right.  Or worse, we can tie the apathy back to a lack of proper maintenance or equipment.

Personal story:  At one DOC facility I personally witnessed their electronic perimeter fence security in failure.  They were constantly getting false readings and were constantly checking out the fence.  I could not get the assistance of the perimeter gate security to secure my firearm because as soon as they arrived they had to leave to check out a perimeter alarm.  When I finally had my firearm secured, the officer assisting me inside the sallyport was called twice to check on perimeter fence alarms immediately adjacent to his location.  These areas were in plain view of the sallyport.  (The sally port was simply a fenced in area and the electronic perimeter fence alarms to be checked only covered approximately 40 feet on each side of the sallyport, possibly even less.)  I could see no people, no animals, not even wind blown leaves to set off the system.  As it was explained to me, the system was exceptionally faulty and there false alarms were constant.  It was stated that fixing the perimeter alarm system was too expensive.

The news report only covered the basics of the problem.  However, I'm sure the problems with the security at Y-12 may be much deeper than we realize.  And the contractors and Federal Government may not even comprehend the problems if they uncover them.

Training in DT's.

I recently attended an advanced Defensive Tactics course.  It was rather informative and I walked away with some concepts that I'll definitely pass on.

I would like to state that when training in DT's, things may get a little rough.  I expect some pain, some bruises, and maybe even some bleeding.  It will happen. what I don't expect is other DT Instructors whining about people being too rough.

Seriously, I was asked to "go soft" a few times.  (Generally we go about 20% of full force for training but some want even less force used.)  Now, those same people would then resist the take down maneuver and laugh that I didn't have it.  When I applied additional force to lock in the take down, people would get upset.

If you want to resist, really resist and don't just pretend you are getting one over on me.  A few of the Instructors were very good sports and we did go at it a lot harder.  We actually had to use skill in order to get down to T-3.  That was a lot of fun!  There was one Instructor whom I will admit was stronger and much more skilled than I was, and I had a blast training with him.

Training.  Do it for real.  Don't just attend.

Life intervened.

I got on my computer just before lunchtime in order to write a post about teaching Defensive Tactics.

Then life intervened.

So, I'll just leave this here and hopefully I'll get a chance to write the post another day.

Ignorance can be bliss.

Earlier this week, at the Palms Internet Cafe in Ocala, Florida, a gentleman by the name of Samuel Williams defended himself from two people who attempted to rob the cafe.  The two were armed with a handgun and a baseball bat.

I have no argument against using lethal force against multiple subjects with weapons.  Yes, a baseball bat is a weapon!  It can maim and even kill when used, and does not take much training to use.  I will go into detail about the 21 foot rule for hand held weapons in another post in the future.

Now, I did have some comments about the video posted.

ABC News-Florida man shoots alleged robbers

About 14 seconds into the video that I linked, you see the behavior in the crowd. My first comment is that everyone just turns around and looks once the subjects enter.  It's obvious that they have done something to draw attention to themselves.  Reading the news reports, I will assume that they announced that their intentions were malicious.

I'm assuming at this point that everyone was in "condition white."  I can not disagree, as you can not maintain a "condition yellow" 24/7.  Watching a movie, playing on the computer, even eating dinner your attention will be drawn elsewhere.  I will admit that once I was in line at the bank behind an off duty Deputy from a local jurisdiction.  (I knew him in a professional sense and recognized him in out of uniform.)  I can tell you that we were both carrying a concealed handgun.  A gentleman walked in to the bank and loudly announced "This is a stick up!"  Even in "condition yellow," there was that half second delay for the both of us to process what was going on.  Fortunately we realized that the gentleman knew the cashiers and was making (what he thought) was a joke, so fortunately no harm came to him.  The Deputy and one of the bank managers had a nice long talk with the gentleman.

Back to the video.  The problem that I see is that many people maintain a "condition white" for the entire time of the incident.  At 14 seconds in to the video Samuel Williams engages the suspects.  There are two bystanders standing beside him as he fires upon the suspects.  One man is standing with his hands up, while another woman is walking and covers her ears.  The man at least looks in the direction of the gunfire.  The woman keeps her hears covered and continues to walk.  Neither drops to the floor or seeks cover/concealment.  Most patrons appear to stay seated.  They stayed in "condition white."  They did nothing, not even to protect their own lives.

I find it difficult to understand why a person would not try to protect themselves or their loved ones.  Many people are under the impression that some vague "other people" will take care of them.  Most people don't know how to properly take care of themselves in an emergency.  Sometimes, when "something" happens, you have to at least do "something."  It might not be the best idea or the brightest, and it may cause more harm than good, but at least you took action.  Often the worst thing is to do nothing at all.  Sadly, I understand that those who could do nothing may be ignorant to the fact that they could have helped themselves.

My complaints with Instapundit

I read a large number of blogs.  I don't read all of them every day.  My work schedule makes that difficult.  So, often I'll be catching up with a blog after two or three days.

Most blogs are written by one writer and maybe they will have a page full of new posts.  However, Instapundit aggregates many links which I think is compiled by more than one author.  Thus, if I miss out on a day or two of it then I have a lot to read!

Now, I like Instapundit.  I really do.  There is a lot of good information there.  Heck, I even like the Amazon links.

But there is one thing about Instapundit that I don't care for.

It refreshes itself every so often.

That refresh is the most annoying thing out there!  I remember that, at one point, a lot of news web sites would do the refresh in order to update their page.  Well... Back then we still had dial up and it made some web pages unreadable.  It created web surfing habits that I have not broken.  As an example I still don't go to the Fox News web site because it was completely unreadable back when I had dial up.  I'll go there if there is a link to it but I've never developed a habit of going there on my own.

Instapundit has a lot of good info, but it's frustrating to loose my place in reading when they add one article only.  I'll be about to click a link then the page refreshes for one extra line.  I have to scroll back down and find my spot.  I don't always find my spot.  Also, I can't just walk away from the PC and take care of stuff.  I have to stay with my computer in order to read it all.

Now, I know my complaints here won't accomplish anything.  Heck, I get very few hits on my blog as is.  But, I do wish the site would stop refreshing in order to become a little bit more user friendly.

/rant off

In Requiem: John Trexler

I would like to take this opportunity to say goodbye to John Trexler.  He was a wonderful musician.  I always made sure that I would listen to him play his Hurdy Gurdy at the North Carolina Renaissance Festival.

Doing Fifteen Miles Under the Speed Limit

Don't you love it when you are late from work and you get behind the slow poke?

Yesterday I got off a little late for work.  I thought I had plenty of time after my shower so I tossed Adorable Preciousness' clothes in the wash and I also installed a hand full of  updates on my PC.  While I was not paying attention the time got away from me and suddenly I was running later than I wanted to.

Now, if traffic cooperates then I knew that I would be arriving "on time."  Not quite what I wanted to do but it worked.

Now, most of my drive is up the interstate.  Traffic is light because I'm on the road several hours before rush hour.  I've rarely had problems on the interstate that early.  However, I have to drive several miles on a no-passing road.  The speed limit is 55. Light traffic and I rarely meet anyone on it.  However, yesterday there was this little car going 40 miles an hour on it.  The road is well marked, well paved, and fairly straight.  The state redid the road years ago and there is no reason to drive so slowly on such a road.  I'm stuck behind this car for several miles and I walked in the door at the last minute.

Again, quite frustrating.

Half off at Walmart

So...

The local Walmart has been clearing it's inventory of display electronics.  The electronics that are out there for the public to look at and touch?  Half off!

We wandered in on Sunday to look at shoes for Adorable Preciousness.  We picked up a Blu-ray player.  All they had left were some huge TV's and computer monitors.  Nice, but we don't need or want them.

I went by Walmart on Monday and they had their display out again, this time with another selection of TV's.  The guy stated that they found a whole pallet in the back with TV's on it.

Well, we picked up a 32" Vizio VO320E.  However, it did not come with a stand.  I know that I can buy a wall mount for it, but I've been looking for a replacement stand due to how we want to use the TV.

And they are all out of stock.  Oh well.

Getting sucked back into gaming.

OK, maybe the title of this post is not all that accurate.  I should not say that I'm getting "sucked" back in.  I must admit that I'm walking back in to online gaming with both eyes open.

A friend sent me a "Scroll of Resurrection" for World of Warcraft.  It allows you 7 free days of play plus you can transfer to a different realm plus you can level one alt to level 80.  I took advantage of it just to see what the game was still like.

The game still sucks.  My alt was one of three in Stormwind when I logged on.  I will admit that logging on May 15, the same day as the release of Diablo III, may have had something to do with the low realm population.  Or not.  I found that my old raiding guild had been deleted.  Oddly enough, my leveling guild that had "died" back in BC was still limping along with a handful of members.

While I was shopping with Adorable Preciousness, I swung by Best Buy and picked up a copy of Diablo III.  I still have not installed it.  I've been rather busy all day and I'm way behind on chores.  I never got around to upgrading my PC from XP to Windows 7.  I've had a copy of Windows 7 since December with the intention of buying some new hard drives to do a RAID set up but the money has not been there.  I've finally decided to just pop in a blank hard drive  yet I've had no time to actually do it.

Which reminds me, I need to pick up something in order to save my iTunes music.  Transferring iTunes is a pain in the tuckas.

Carrying Concealed with an empty chamber.

If you have been reading any gun boards or gun blogs for any amount of time, you will find an argument about the merits of an empty chamber or keeping a round in the chamber of a firearm that you carry.  I was recently on Sharp as a Marble and saw this.
Sharp as a Marble

For those of you not familiar, here is a quick rundown.  The argument for keeping the chamber empty is the safety issue.  If there is no round in the chamber, then you can not fire the handgun by accident.  The argument for keeping the chamber loaded is for self defense.  If the firearm is hot, then you can protect yourself quicker.

I can see the pro's and con's for each argument.  But, there are better arguments elsewhere online so I shall merely tell you what I did.

My first firearm was a Glock 17.  I had some basic training with firearms, but I was no where near an expert.  I bought my pistol and I quickly got a concealed weapons permit.

See, the Glock 17 has no external safety.  It has a very nice internal safety meaning you can bang around the pistol all day and night and it will not go off.  The safety release is on the trigger meaning you have to put your finger on the trigger in order to release the safety.  Does that make sense?

So...  as a new concealed carrier, I was a little nervous about carrying a loaded firearm with no external safety.  I did not fully trust my pistol at the time.  I just trusted that if I needed my pistol that I would be able to draw and rack the slide fast enough.

All of this changed when I purchased my second firearm.  It was a Smith & Wesson 642 revolver.  I carried it a few times and then it hit me.  Revolver = No External Safeties.  Glock is also = No External Safeties.

Wait a minute!

So, I only carried with an empty chamber for a few months before I became comfortable enough to carry hot.  But, as a new shooter I was more comfortable carrying with an empty chamber.  And despite all the arguments for and against, the biggest argument for carrying with an empty chamber was that it became a stepping stone to carrying concealed properly.  Had I been forced to carry hot out from the start, I probably would have declined and never gotten into firearms properly.

Plugs and Surge Protectors

I have a surge protector on my computer.  It's a nice one.  Not the top of the line but not super cheap either.  I think it came with a warranty in case it fails.  Not that I kept any paperwork involving such a thing.

It has eight outlets on it.  Five are side by side and two are actually off to the side.  It also has protection for coaxial cable and phone line, and a cable management system and other doo-dads but I'm not going to explore them right now.

The problem with such a set up on a surge protector is that most electronic devices now have an electronic box of some type attached to the end of their plug.  Therefore instead of a nice normal little plug they have this monstrosity of a box.  With that box the plug will then block several outlets.  My cell phone charger has a narrow box that would actually only block one slot if the outlets were horizontal instead of vertical.  Instead the bloc physically covers two outlets and the cord interferes with a third outlet.  My router has a monstrosity of a square box that can block the outlets on either side and from top to bottom.  However, my printer has a nice box that is actually in the middle of the cord so that the box will sit on the floor and it has a normal plug to fit in the surge protector.

Thus, with all of my computer equipment, I now need to purchase a second surge protector to protect everything.  Currently, my speakers and my cell phone charger are plugged in with no protection.  I wish that these companies would make smarter equipment and start adding a "normal" plug to everything.

Studio Gainex!

I find it quite odd that I have failed to post this video.  The music is "I Want You" and it is off of the OST that the anime is based on.

For those that are interested, the title of the anime is "Panty and Kneesocks with Garterbelt."  Yes, it is as absurd as the title suggests, but what else would you expect from the studio that also brought you FLCL?

Playing on the internet.

Between my normal work schedule, training, overtime, and Easter I've been very busy.  Adorable Preciousness woke up at 3am and wanted to play, then woke up again at 7.  I finally got her down for her nap and tried to work on transferring files to my wife's new laptop.  Going from Vista 32bit to Win7 64bit is... a lot more trouble than it's worth.  Unfortunately, I'm spending more time playing on the internet than I am researching how to properly transfer all of the files.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone!

Once upon a time....

Once upon a time, I was a Dispatcher.  I worked the Emergency Call Center for a local county.  All Fire, Medical, and Law Enforcement calls went through us.  Also, as we were a county wide dispatch office (instead of just an emergency office) we handled calls for other county services:  Schools, Animal Control, Public Utilities, Et Al.

This lead to some interesting calls.

Our county was...  Growing.  When I was a kid, the county was considered poor but being on an interstate some interesting industries had opened up.  These industries gave the county a nice tax base and when I was in college the county was able to install a 911 system.  Shortly thereafter the low cost of property lead to a lot of people with money moving in.

It was actually quite common to drive around and see a McMansion constructed next to a hand build shack.

Hmm...  Let's find a story for me to tell about my adventures as a Dispatcher.  Let me preface it with the fact that the county had always been friendly to agriculture.  Plenty of farms.  This county was the only local area where exotic animal farms were legal.  Suddenly they were popping up everywhere.  Lions.  Tigers.  Monkeys.  Ostrich.  You name it, someone probably raised it.  With the exception of elephants.  I never saw any elephants.  Those things are pretty hard to miss.

I was taking calls and someone called in to the non-emergency number.

Caller:  "Sorry to bother you, but this is kind of odd."
Me:  "No problem, that is what we are here for.  What is going on?"
Caller:  "I'm not too sure, but I swear that there is an Emu in my back yard."
Me:  "No problem ma'am.  I'll notify Animal Control.  You are only about a mile from an exotic animal farm."

Actually, I do find it a little odd that someone can live so close to an exotic animal farm and not know it.

DyE - Fantasy

Here is an interesting music video by DyE titled "Fantasy."  Very interesting style and subject.

First lawn mowing of the season!

Spring has sprung early.  The weeds in the front yard are above my ankles.  I've got a day off.  Visiting MIL is playing with Adorable Preciousness.  I HAVE FREE TIME TO MOW THE LAWN!

Being the first time I've had the mower out this year, normally I would do some basic maintenance.  Change the oil and filter.  Maybe get the blades sharpened if they need it.  However, due to a handful of minor emergencies last week, I am dead broke!  (So broke that I have to break out my credit card to get gas until I get paid again.)  Therefore, I decided that I can forego the annual maintenance of my mower until I get paid.

This is not really a bad thing.  The mower is relatively new, being purchased last summer.  I did winterize it so I was not looking at any major issues.  I checked it out this morning.  Everything looked pretty good.  The oil still looked clean and it was at the appropriate level.

It took three pulls to start the mower and then she ran like a champ!  I made a few passes in the front lawn and then I noticed that the mower was smoking.  There also appeared to be mud on the deck.  My first impression was that I ran it too close to the mud puddle on the side of the driveway.  Then I notice that the oil fill cap was loose.

I apparently did not attach the cap properly.  When I put it on, it was snug and I could not pull it out but I did think that it went on oddly.  It's my fault for not checking it a third time.

So, the lawn care is on hold until I break out the credit card to buy oil and change it.  I should know better than to cut corners.  It never works out for me.

Time to pull out my pith helmet and machete so I can work my way to the car.

World of Warcraft - It keeps trying to drag me in!

I recently got an e-mail from Blizzard asking me to come back.  It is a "Scroll of Resurrection."  Apparently, if you accept the offer you can get a handful of benefits.  Quite interesting!  One benefit is to get an alt up to 80.  I was trying to level a Paladin as a Tank when I left WOW and I am somewhat interested in the proposition.

This also lead me to look at the videos for "Mists of Panderia."  I was very unenthused when I heard about the new expansion.  While it is very beautiful, it still strikes me as if the developers watched Kung Fu Panda one too many times.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Now go and enjoy all the green beer you want!  Me, I'm drinking Smithwick's.

Lack of posts

I'm ten days in to a twelve day stretch of working.  Plus, the wife and I are sharing one computer because tea was spilt on her laptop.  I'll post something when I have time.

STD's are a good thing?

I'm on Facebook and a friend posted that they were excited that the STD's arrived.

WTF?

Whom in their right mind would be excited about a Sexually Transmitted Disease?

Oh, wait.  They are getting married.  STD stands for Save The Date cards.  Brilliant.

Yes, they got some ribbing on Facebook for their choice of abbreviations.

Late 70's Music Videos

Floating around on the internet I found a list of 15 Weirdest Music Videos of all Time.  I found the following video a lot of fun, even though it was from 1978!  I'm just dissapointed that there was not much more of a Robert Heinlein reference to it.

There are apparently a handful of covers of this song.  Some are pretty catchy!

Field Training Officer

I've been training a new officer at my agency.  Seems OK, a little nervous but that is what training is for.

My only complaint?  Keys.  The key ring only has a limited amount of keys on it.  If you do not know which key opens a door, try all of them.  IN ORDER!  Don't pick one random key, then another random key, then on and on.  You will never find the key.  If you start with one key and work your way through then you will have tried all the keys.  And one will work!

Fireflies, with style!

Here is a nice techno version of "Fireflies."  The video was mashed with a lot of anime.  It's a very nice mix!

Aphex Twin - Flim

This here is an interesting song.  Light techno.  Very nice!  Apparently it was published in 1997 and I kind of wish I had heard it back then.

More music from YouTube

This is an interesting song.  "Never Alone" by Barlow Girl.  The uploader set the music to anime art.  Very nice!  

Derpy Quinn

"You got your My Little Pony in my Batman!" 

"You got your Batman in my Little Pony!" 

Munamies, performing Pomppufiilis

Here is the ear worm of the day!

Procrastination

One of my problems is that I will put stuff off. 

For example, this morning I woke up with my daughter and we spent a delightful morning together!  She is crawling all over and pulling herself up on anything that won't tip over or run away from her.  Keeps me busy.  But I'm not getting time to do much and I barely got a bowl of cereal in me.  (I never got the coffee started.) 

Thus, Adorable Preciousness went down for her first nap just before 10am.  She tends to be a little fussy when going to sleep so I just got on the computer and listened to her over the baby monitor.  I figured that I would check my mail and bank accounts as she fell asleep and if she ended up not sleeping then I could stop what I was doing and take care of her.  Well, Adorable Preciousness did fall asleep.  But I never finished up what I had gotten online to do.  Valentines Day is coming up thus I was looking online for some ideas, plus I had not been online for a few days so I wanted to catch up on reading several blogs...  Et Al.  Suddenly, it's two hours later and A.P. is up with a vengeance! 

And I had not even started my coffee.  /sigh  I know better!

LMFAO-Mr. Bean mix!

A non-functioning iPod

I woke up this morning and found that my iPod Touch would not turn on.  It was quite frustrating.  I have an Otterbox for my iPod and the last use it got last night was that I updated my checking account on Balance. Playing with the home and power buttons got no response.

I was determined not to get upset.  I plugged my iPod into my PC in order to charge it.  It would not charge nor would iTunes register it.  I searched online for an answer and found very little useful information.  Finally I found a site that recommended that I hold down the home and power buttons together.  I had done that but I tried it again and held the buttons down for about 10 seconds.  That worked! 

When it came back on, my iPod had very little power in the battery.  It was odd because I had over half a charge when I used it last night.  I don't keep any programs on in the background and I always turn off my screen so I can not account for the power drain.  It is only a year old.  As a matter of fact, I purchased it in January of last year.

Technology.  Heh, first world problems.  Am I right?

A Witness to the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

My Great-Great-Great Grandfather fought in the American Civil War.  We have very little from him.  However, my father and uncle will tell me stories of my Great-Aunts talking about the wounds that he carried from the war.  I found that amazing that I am hearing from a witness to a witness from a grand historical event.


I would like to point out that there is audio and video recording of Civil War veterans and civilians out there.  A bit of it is on YouTube but it is sparse and often mislabeled.  Recently I came across this gem.  The man was 5 years old, but he was in the theater the night that President Abraham Lincoln was shot!

Lincoln Assassination Eyewitness (Feb 9,  1956)

Wine Review: Chateau Ste. Michelle Harvest Select Riesling 2010

I am not a wine snob.  I'm barely a fan of wines.  My tastes go towards the sweeter wines, which is quite opposite of the dry wines everyone seems to think so highly of.  Thus, here is my absolutely amateurish wine review. 

I recently picked up a bottle of the Chateau Ste. Michelle Harvest Select Riesling 2010.  Chateu Ste. Michelle also makes a straight Riesling but I currently have not tried that one yet.

The first thing I get was a strong citrus taste.  I mean strong.  My first glass had not aerated very much and I was unprepared.  Letting the wine aerate made it much smoother.  Now, they pushed that it was sweeter and that it had a finish of peach and apricot.  All I could taste was grapefruit.  It did not seem all that sweet to me.  But I do appreciate that it was not dry nor did it have an oaky taste. 

I will state that I did try it with food pairings.  It went very well with salmon and also with stuffed peppers.

In conclusion, it was not a bad wine.  However, it was not a wine that really did it for me.  I can see other people purchasing this wine and enjoying it.  However, I don't see myself picking this one up again.  However, I am not a very prodigous purchaser of wine thus it is not really a negative thing.  Therefore I do not want to discourage others from buying this wine.

Where is the post-holiday break?

Where is the free time? 

Things always seem to get very busy with the holidays.  Spending the time with the family such as having them over or going to visit them.  We also hosted a few "get togethers" at our place, such as our annual Christmastime Chili Party. 

Our friend who was to host a New  Year's Eve get together had an illness in the family, thus we ended up inviting everyone over to our place.  The benefit of that was I saw the New Year rung in and then I was able to get to bed right at 12:30 AM.  The drawback was that I got a phone call at 3AM from work and I had to go in.  I've worked straight through since.  I work 12+ hour shifts and it can burn you out.  Most of the stress has come from not being able to accomplish anything at the house.  It's been difficult to clean and it took me two days just to take down some simple Christmas lights that I had outdoors.  (I still have the lights along the gutter to remove.)  One of the poles to our clothes line rusted through and fell down, and today is the first day I've even been able to see it in daylight. 

I just have to sit back and relax and keep it in my mind that I am not going to get everything done today.  There is only so much that I can do between the house, the clothes, and the baby.  Heck, I can't even afford to buy what I need to fix and/or replace the clothes line.  (Well, I can charge it but I won't.)  And yes, I am going to take some time out today to do some relaxing and get myself mentally centered before I have to go back to it all over again tomorrow.