Of course, Kath or Glenn could post something too

Anywho, I actually did have a couple of things to share with y’all real quick that are really rather suited to the technogeeks out there but I figure they might come in handy for everyone   These websites might just save you some aggravation someday

First is memorari.us.  Memorari is a simple website that will automatically send you a reminder about anything you want via email, text message, or a few other means.  Just put in the date, the transmission method, your contact info, and a message and it’ll show up where and when you want it to.  The message and all info about it are destroyed for good as soon as the message has been sent.  Downright useful, that is

The second site is downforeveryoneorjustme.com which can be rather helpful at times.  Have you ever tried to get to a certain website, but can’t and you don’t know if it’s just you or if the site’s actually down?  Just go to this site, put the website you want to check in the search box, and it’ll tell you if it can be reached by that web server or not.  Now you’ll know who to call if you can’t get to this site

That’s it for tonight – have a great day

26 July 2010 - Hogjaw, Area 51, Road Runners Internationale, and former black projects

And then I remembered all the space I have on the walls of my cubicle at work   Yep, I’ve got just about all my patches up on the walls at work

Some of these patches are rather rare.  For example, you can only get one of those CIA patches from the CIA gift shop.  Thankfully, I’m an associate member of the Road Runners Internationale and the CIA is rather close to our group due to the history of the Road Runners’ projects like the U-2 and A-12.  The CIA is so kind as to bring their gift shop to our reunions which means I get to shop where very few can

The rest of the patches on this wall have something to do with the CIA, the Road Runners, or black projects in Nevada.  Take the 547th Intelligence Squadron patch – these are the men and women who exploit foreign technology that’s been “acquired” by various means.  The Road Runner feature prominently – check out their website for some really interesting Cold War secrets   And there’s a couple of special, very limited edition Area 51 patches as well

26 July 2010 - Jimmy Buffett, NASA, Cape Hatteras, and the USAF represented here

It’s not just Road Runners and CIA that I’ve got on display.  There’s plenty of NASA and USAF patches here, too.  I may have to pick up a few more when I get the chance to fill in the wall a bit more   Still, there’s the stickers Kath sent me along with a couple of Raptor patches & T-Bird patches which I think all works well together.

Let’s not forget that I’m still a Parrothead and you’re probably going to find some Jimmy Buffett items around

26 July 2010 - Thanks for the OBX stickers, Kath

Gotta love the bumper stickers   “The Weather is Here” is a favorite of many Buffett fans while I’d love to see someone in office who actually has a clue as well.  I don’t agree with Jimmy’s politics for the most part, but he seems to understand what the average Joe is going through – he’s been broke and sleeping on a friend’s couch with only a bicycle for transportation before.  And of course, you’ve gotta love the OBX sticker and the Cape Hatteras lighthouse postcard

26 July 2010 - Road Runners Internationale - In God We Trust - All Others We Monitor

Ah, the good ol’ Road Runners 8)  This is key tag is pretty appropriate when you consider that they were responsible for the U-2, A-12, SR-71, M-21, and D-21   If you don’t know what those were or are, just put ‘em into a Google search and you’ll find out

26 July 2010 - Who here can pick out the most black projects and symbols in this patch?

I paid quite a bit more for this patch than I normally would for most.  It’s a very limited edition and very cool – if you know your Groom Lake history   I’ll tell you that the bird down on the bottom is for the Road Runners and the silver plane at the top is for the U-2, but each of the symbols on the patch refers to a program or group that’s been declassified.  How many can you understand?  I’m only missing a couple

Anywho, that’s about it for now.  Have a great day

OK, enough of that – here’s the pics

23 July 2010 - Guido & New Frontier Armory's new "deuce and a half" military surplus truck

23 July 2010 - Guido & New Frontier Armory's new "deuce and a half" military surplus truck

I headed on over to New Frontier Armory / Infinite Arms after work after not darkening their doorway for two whole weeks   Well, Guido who owns New Frontier Armory just got a new toy and I couldn’t pass up getting a pic of it   These trucks don’t get the greatest gas mileage as you can imagine but I still want one in a big way – they’re just cool 8)  Of course, the fact that you can get one for between $1,500 and $2,000 might have something to do with it, too

23 July 2010 - Geocaching vehicle travel bug

I haven’t been geocaching in quite a while, but I still recognized this for what it is – a travel bug decal on a vehicle

If you haven’t heard of geocaching, check out geocaching.com and see if it’s something you might like.  All you need is a GPS receiver and a computer, but a pencil helps as well sometimes   Basically, people hide geocaches, record the GPS coordinates, post them on geocaching.com, and then you go find them and log your finds on geocaching.com.  A geocache is basically some sort of container with a log inside that you sign.  Many of them also contain a pencil to sign the log with and a few trade items like key chains and small compasses.  You’re always supposed to trade up – leave something nicer than you took for others to trade.  It’s a fun way to get out and do something

23 July 2010 - Heading home under the desert sun

It will likely come as no surprise that it’s been HOT lately here in Las Vegas   I took this picture while heading home from NFA/IA when it was about 114° or so and yes, it’s just as hot as you’d imagine.  At least the humidity’s down near 10% so it’s pretty livable

Last, but not least I have a video for a change   I set up my Nikon Coolpix S220 in interval mode to take 1 picture per minute looking out from my desk at work when I saw a thunderstorm building.  Once I had all the pictures, I put ‘em into Windows Movie Maker and made a time lapse movie 8)  The music comes from YouTube’s “audio swap” feature and I think it works rather well

That’s it for now   Here’s hoping you have a great Sunday

Racism. Works both ways.

Today was the last clinical day and I cannot say HOORAY loudly enough to make it clear how glad I am that pediatric clinicals are over.

Now, back to the title.  I was at a day care again today.  Day care in general tries my patience, because there is zero discipline at them.  Little Billy could bite Little Susie’s ear off and he’d get a “stern talking to”.  They can’t even stand the kids in the corner for misbehavior anymore and boy, those shitheads rays of sunshine know it.  Today was a bit different than the other days, as I was at a different facility.  It was an amazing place- amazing in the fact that only the little white kids did wrong.  Seriously, during the entire day, all of the children acted like drunken squids, but only (and yes, I do mean ONLY) the little white kids were called down for their behavior.  I raised an eyebrow at that about one hour into the day.  Susie & LaQuinettaLaShequaDominiquatisa could have been doing the same thing & Susie was the one to get her ass reamed out over the transgression.

All of the kids were suffering from EXTREME Hickory Deficiency, but the kids doing some of the worst things were overly praised, while others were chewed out for “smacking while eating”.

I was not amused.

I heard a lot of interesting stuff though, especially when it was “Learning Time”.  This month’s theme is Africa, The Greatest Nation.  (I shit you not.  One child mentioned Hawaii & the “teacher” said, “We’re not talking about Hawaii & anyway, Africa is way better than Hawaii!”.)

I learned some new stuff today and although I might be racist, not only in the way I mention it, but by mentioning it at all, here goes-

1) Africa is made up entirely of islands.  There are no countries, just islands.

2) There is (and this is a real quote) “not a lot of climate over there because it’s too hot”.

3) Africans are famous for their paintings and contest dancing.

4) There is a “good Africa” and a “not good Africa”.  In “not good Africa”, the houses all have skraw roofs.

5) Chickens and hens are not related to one another.

6) In America, we celebrate New Years Day with fireworks everywhere.

7) They have a different heritage of police.  ???

8  ) Their favorite game to play is chest.

9) African jury is made with two colors.  (Jury=jewelry)

10) Two lakes run through the entire country, not continent.  At this point, the “teachers” began to argue.  The 2nd one said the first one meant Oceans, not lakes.  They argued for a little while until I suggested they both meant RIVERS.

Now I feel so much brighter.  I cannot believe that all the geography teachers who taught me over the years were so stupid!

Hope you feel brighter, too.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go soak my head in the toilet for a little while.

>.<

From a friend of Jeff and I. Pay close attention to it, folks. It does make sense. And is a laugh, in a sick and twisted way. Because it is so painful as to be almost funny. I will not divulge the name. Give me all the hell you can. I don’t care. I have had cancer and lived through it.

Coal showed up at our front door around midnight on 10 December 2008.  I heard meowing when I went to get a drink and saw him outside through the window.  It was seriously cold out and it took only a bit of coaxing to get him to come inside.  Cindy and her niece Stevie had seen him earlier that night while doing the nightly walk around the storage facility she managed and we lived at but figured he’d go back to his home.  He didn’t have any tags and after getting a better look at him it seems he was out on his own for a while after likely being abandoned due to a home foreclosure.

I woke Cindy up after he came inside and everything seemed pretty good when he crawled into bed with Stevie.  We eventually gave him to Stevie as a Christmas present   The pics below are from the day after he showed up on our front porch.  I took him down to the vet to have him scanned for a chip and while they found one, it was from the other end of the valley and from several years before.  The number in the registration information had been disconnected so we decided it was finders keepers and added a furry member to the family.  I’d thought of keeping him, but there were a few things that kept that from happening.  Still, he found a good home and I was happy with that

Coal the cat - First day in our home

Coal the cat - He sure was skinny!

Coal the Cat - Even when he was skinny and hungry he was curious a

Coal the Cat - He wasn't sure about much at first...

Coal the Cat - He didn't want to stand still for pictures, either

Coal the Cat - Look at those big, yellow eyes 8)

He was curious, but skittish which was understandable considering his circumstances.  He didn’t like to be picked up much, but he’d come and want to be petted and loved after he figured out that we weren’t going to leave him like someone else had.  Eventually he moved down to Arizona with Cindy’s sister and her family and then back up to Vegas a while later.

Coal the Cat - I last saw him on Thanksgiving Day in 2009

The last time I saw Coal was on Thanksgiving Day last year when I went to Cindy’s sister’s place for dinner.  He was the same cat I remembered and he seemed to remember me as well

I got word today that he had to be put down earlier in the morning.  He’d been losing weight and not doing too well for a while so Cindy’s sister and her family took him to the vet where he was diagnosed with cancer.  From what I understand, there was nothing they could really do for him and he’d only get sicker and hurt more over time so they did what was best for him and let him go.

Coal had been abandoned at one point and we didn’t have him for all that long, but I’m glad we had him while it lasted   He was a good cat and we gave him a good home for the year and a half we could.  He spent the last part of his life with a loving family and a couple of other cats he could play with while being spoiled with treats like tuna, cottage cheese, and plenty of toys.

I’m going to miss him.