So, I decided to call in and ask the shop manager about it. Of course I had to take the bike in for service. So, I took a short lunch break (with Wife), drove home, picked up the bike, and rode to Sparks. The ride was nice though warm. It’s always good to get a little road time.

When I pulled into the lot, the shop door was raised and the manager walked out to the parking lot to check the machine. When I told him why I was there (he remember the phone conversation), he took the bike’s mileage and looked it over.

“There’s the problem…” he stepped over to the front wheel, “the ABS wire is loose. That’s odd…” he poked and prodded a bit. “The cable tie is there, but the sensor wire is rubbing on the disk.”

We walked into the shop. He looked up my machine in the database. “We’ll check it out. You can wait up front and I’ll come get you when I know what’s up.”

So, I wandered out to the shop with my iPhone and book. I didn’t feel much like sitting around, so I prowled the floor, drinking water from the fountain (I was a little dry). I noticed a Vemar helmet with a Bluetooth setup. That’s an interesting idea. I’d like to have my phone connected to my helmet. I’d really like a GPS unit on the bike, and to have tunes, GPS, and phone connected to the helmet as well. It isn’t that I talk on the phone much while driving/riding, but I would like the ability to take a call if one comes in. I’d really like to have a GPS unit on the bike, but that presumes I’m riding more than I currently am. The idea definitely goes in a someday/maybe bin.

The shop manager returned. “You can take the bike. There isn’t a fault, but I want to replace the sensor and we don’t have one in stock. There will be no charge, but you’ll have to come back.” So, I looked through my schedule and agreed on a date and time. I walked to the lot, snagged my helmet, gloves, and jacket from the topcase, and rode off.

On the way west, I missed the U.S. 395 turn-off. “Damn-it…” I muttered in the helmet. So, I turned off at the next exit, reversed, and headed south on U.S. 395. I stopped off at the Sierra Summit mall to take a break (sit in the shade) and call in. I thought it would be a nice ride home to take Mount Rose Highway up to Incline Village, then ride along SH 28 to U.S. 50 and home. I sent a text message to Wife and waited. I watched the mall cop (on a Segway) visit with some of the retail folks. Hey, at least he was riding two wheels, even if there were oriented oddly.

Wife called, we visited, and I told her I was riding home the long way. I remounted Windfola and we headed up the hill. Traffic was building a bit (it was about 1600), but not bad. It thinned quickly (except for four or five four-wheeled conveyances), but I couldn’t get around. So, I relaxed and just enjoyed the ride.

The air cooled as I increased altitude. At the summit it was about 80F — very nice. I noticed the area where snow-machines are ridden in the winter. It would be a great place for some light hiking, but also looked like “bear country” to me. But I still thought it would be pleasant to walk around the alpine meadow for an afternoon. I might have to bring Wife and Young Son there.

The ride down to Incline Village offered a wonderful view of the lake. I never tire of looking at Lake Tahoe. Incline Village was quiet, except for a couple of cruiser-riders who decided they were too important to take the left at the light and rode through the parking lot to save two minutes. Boors. That’s the sort of behavior that gives “bikers” a bad name.

SH 28 was not too busy, although a slow Gran Prix kept me backed up most of the way. It was still a fun ride along the shore and the afternoon light was beautiful.

The ride back over the hill on U.S. 50 was brisk and the temperature warmed steadily as I dropped back into the valley. Too soon the ride was over, but the Shiner was welcome and the tacos Wife and I prepared were even better.

It was a good ride. I have to go back next week and I think that will be a good ride too. Now it’s time for me to get to work!

You’re an 19 year old kid. You’re critically wounded, and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley , 11-14-1965, LZ X-ray, Vietnam . Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8–1, and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the Medi-Vac helicopters to stop coming in.

You’re lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns, and you know youE2re not getting out. Your family is half way around the world—12,000 miles away—and you’ll never see them again. As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day.

Then, over the machine gun noise, you faintly hear that sound of helicopter, and you look up to see an un-armed Huey, but it doesn’t seem real, because no Medi-Vac markings are on it.

Ed Freeman is coming for you. He’s not Medi-Vac, so it’s not his job, but he’s flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire, after the Medi-Vacs were ordered not to come.

He’s coming anyway.

And he drops it in, and sits there in the machine gun fire, as they load 2 or 3 of you on board.

Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire, to the doctors and nurses.

And, he kept coming back… 13 more times… and took about 30 of you and your buddies out, who would never have gotten out…

Medal of Honor Recipient, Ed Freeman, died Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 at the age of 80, in Boise, ID… May God rest his soul.

The last couple of days were “interesting” (in the Chinese sense of the word — “May you live in ‘interesting’ times…”). Yesterday, Wife had a basal-cell carcinoma removed from the area where her nose joins her cheek. It was not as bad as some, but it was plenty bad enough. We were at the clinic for about four or five hours. The routine was, room, surgery, wait for pathology, more surgery, more waiting…

Finally, about 1230 the nurse announced “You’re clean!” She was nearly too-damned perky for me. But, it was good to get out of there, pick up some food, and head home. I intended to work the remainder of the day, but my heart just wasn’t in it. I puttered with work some, but mostly waited in my workroom and watched over Wife while she rested.

This morning was a work-meeting, then try to get some work done. The meeting ran long (scheduled for one hour, took two), so most of the morning was lost. But, I got some work done and delivered a contract modification for signature. I then headed home for a bite of lunch (and to check on Wife). While nibbling lunch, the cable technician called to indicate he could make our appointment early.

So, I was left at the house without my work-gear and was forced to be idle. I hate that. But, the tech arrived at the agreed time and got right to work. It only took him about an hour to get the install running.

So, now we have cable-internet. The download speed is much better than Clearwire. The Clearwire service has been deteriorating over the last seven–eight months and the latency has been horrible the last three or four weeks. It was bad enough that I called for cable-internet service last week, with the install this afternoon.

I’m holding my Clearwire modem for a few days to see how the cable service settles in, but I was getting 3.5–4.0Mb/s on my iPhone! The ping was about 70ms and upload speed was much better.

I think this will allow me to successfully operate my office computer from my home office. That means I can run models remotely when I need to and track my timesheet as well. If it works as well as I think, then my internet-life will improve substantially.

A week or so ago, I received a message via Twitter from Chessie in which she said:

@dbthompson Man your on the road all the time… what the heck you do for a living anyway? and when do ya get to ride?

The answer is more than fits in a 140-character microblog entry… but not by too much, maybe. So, here’s the short answer.

I’m a civil engineer/surface-water hydrologist. I work on water-related problems. A part of my work is research-oriented, which means I do studies for folks who need to know something about the water (either too much or too little), its distribution, and its occurrence. I still have a number of ongoing research projects that are conducted as part of a team approach.

Sometimes I’m on the road a lot. For me, that’s typically been during the summer months. Before I left academics, that was because I didn’t have class responsibilities and was (relatively) free to travel. Most of that travel involved working with colleagues on my research projects, although some was personal.

Since I left academics a couple of years ago, I don’t have the classroom schedule to keep me tied down. However, a number of my research colleagues still do. So, meetings tend to happen during the summer months when they’re free to work. This summer required two trips to Texas (already) to tend to project work and see to the final examination of a graduate student. I suspect there will be at least one more trip to Texas this summer.

I ride whenever I can. I’m a semi-daily rider and use the bike to commute to work. I also take rides on the weekends, when I can. We’re working on reducing the amount of “things” we have, so my weekend have been a little more dedicated to that activity the last few months, but I can see a time approaching when we work through that process and I’ll have a day to just go ride. I’m also thinking of taking at least one long ride before the season ends (or when it’s not safe to trust the weather any more). Maybe September or October will be the right time to take a couple days off and ride over a long weekend.

So, there’s the short answer. The long answer is contained in the 3k or more entries in this thing called a weblog. Howzat??? :)

I’m bringing the weekend to a close tonight. I’ll logoff and hit the rack in another hour or so, because I wake early and like to get things started when I’m at my best, which is in the morning. It was a pretty good weekend, restful in a good way, which is something there hasn’t been much of in recent history.

Friday was just a day off. I didn’t much at all except rest. I puttered a little, listened to some music, and ultimately took a nap about noon while listening to music. It was good.

My boss called me in the evening and asked if I was up for a range day. I was planning on making a range trip this weekend anyway, so his invite was welcome. Boss’ Wife and Wife decided to come along. Joy!

Although I didn’t sleep well Friday night, I woke at about my normal time, made coffee, and thought about what we’d do. My range days take a couple different lines — sometimes I just take one stand and put up a couple of bulls-eye targets. Those are days for trigger work and marksmanship practice. I usually take the .22 target pistol along, plus the Glock and the conversion kit for it. The drills are shooting two-handed strong- and weak-side, then shooting one-handed strong- and weak-sided. It’s simple, clean, and doesn’t require a lot of work to prepare the range.

The other line is when I take my complement of target stands and set up some standard drills to shoot. On these days, I take the shot-timer to track my time and test myself. I have a number of drills I shoot and the emphasis is less on marksmanship and more on basic gun handling, getting the gun from the holster onto the target quickly, and getting good hits.

The latter is what I decided for Saturday morning. I thought my guests would appreciate that more than standing square on the range and punching holes in paper. It turned out to be a good day and the pressure of the shot time worked for me.

For one drill, I placed two silhouettes at about three yards — contact distance — and provided direction to shoot as quickly as possible. I then proceeded to demonstrate from the holster. That’s close enough that point-shooting is possible and appropriate. It is a different problem than when the distance is five or ten yards.

Tired, sweaty, but satisfied, we left the range about 1000 and stopped by the Cracker Box in Carson City for a bite. Wife and I ate early (I have to and so does she), but Boss and Boss’ Wife had not. So, we had secondsies Saturday morning. The Cracker Box has a wonderful ham steak and I can eat eggs almost anytime. We chatted about what we’d done and about the weekend. It was a great way to spend the 4th of July and a great way for me to remember what was happening in 1776. They were preparing for a fight and they knew it.

The remainder of the day I spent puttering around the house. I had a few things to do at the computer — system maintenance and backing up my files mostly. I fired up the grill about noon and grilled some steaks and hamburgers. Wife baked (well, nuked) some potatoes and we feasted.

Later, Wife and I drove into Carson to rent a movie and brought Gran Torino home. We watched some Netflix movies I had, finishing up what we had of Heroes and re-watching Daredevil, which is one of my favorite movies. It’s even better in high-definition.

I slept in (a little) this morning, rose, made coffee, and sat at the computer to deal with the email that came in overnight. I finally decided to ditch Clearwire and subscribe to cable internet. Our Clearwire service has been dicey too much, with latency and bandwidth issues over the last few months. It’s not bad early in the morning, but by noon it appears that they’re throttling bandwidth — file downloads start quickly, but then slow a lot. I can’t reliably connect to my office computer except early in the morning. So, I’m going to buy a bit more bandwidth from the cable company and see if that resolves my troubles.

Wife and I watched Gran Torino this afternoon. It wasn’t what I was expecting but I thought it was a decent story and I like Clint Eastwood. I’ve been napping and listening to music since then. It’s been a good weekend. It sure beats the intensity of the last few weeks.

• County Comm has some fascinating tactical/survival gear — and their videos are really something to see.
• County Comm does a demo on using paracord to create a breacher-bar grip that is very cool.
• This is good.
• A Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot moment? ;)
• I like the Tenth Amendment Center. They are on the right track.
• This essay by Tim Schmidt on Benjamin Franklin is a keeper.
• Joe’s Cartoons are a hoot if you’re into that sort of thing.
• God Sheds His Grace is worth a second read. I think he’s right; we couldn’t do it now. My greater fear is that we’re watching it die. I hate that.
• The Shiner Brewery keeps running. That’s a good thing.

The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more. – John Adams

In his newsletter, Tim Schmidt goes on…

233 years ago tomorrow, our county declared independence from the tyrannical British empire. Not for power… not for gold… but for freedom. They wanted to live their lives and to be left alone, and they realized that they didn’t need a nanny-government directing how they lived their lives.

Freedom is easy and successful, because freedom is the truth. There is nothing better on this physical earth. For the intellectual: Freedom to know yourself, freedom to know others, and freedom to know your God. For the adventurer: Freedom to travel. For the farmer: Freedom to grow, feed, and harvest the fruits of a summer’s hard work. For the business man: The freedom to test your ideas against your customers- not some government agency.

For all of us: Freedom to try, fail, and succeed. The freedom to live, laugh, and love. The freedom to pursue happiness.

Tyranny focuses on the elite. Socialism is really about the elite as well, but it claims to focus on the “collective good”. Either way, both of these devalue the individual human life.

Freedom is all about the individual, and recognizing the value of each individual human life: priceless.

As priceless as each of our lives are… as priceless as each of the founding father’s lives were, and as priceless as the lives of the soldiers of the revolutionary war were- freedom is worth more. Freedom is worth more. They knew that. Do we know that?

Always go at your duty to defend freedom with as much gusto as you go about your duty to defend your priceless life.

Freedom is worth it.

I don’t know what I can add.

When it happened, we were in Hawthorne, Nevada. Young Son rolled down the window to make an image of the setting sun. The window failed. Wife said “That’s the problem with power windows.”

I was pretty disappointed. The little BMW just turned over 80K. We put a lot of miles on that little car — it had just over 30K on the clock when we bought it in September 2006 (after my 325i was totaled).

It’s fortunate it doesn’t rain much here. If it did, I doubt I could have kept the car’s interior dry. But, the rain moved on last week and the days are now warm and the evenings are cool. So I’ll drive to Reno this morning and have the dealer repair the window. I’ll carry my work kit with me and get some work done. Then I’ll stop by and visit Wife for a few minutes (maybe get to share lunch) and head for the office to wrap up most of the things on my plate.

Tomorrow is a day off in celebration of Independence Day. I might have to watch a movie of our independence in remembrance of the sacrifice of our forefathers for the freedom they so desired. That’s a bittersweet thing for me these days, because I watch the erosion of that freedom for the sake of an implied security. But, I think I’ll go no further with the political there, at least for now.

Tomorrow morning I’ll work a bit. I have a few things to catch up on and am still in the process of sorting out work priorities. Then either tomorrow morning or Saturday morning I’ll get in a little range time. I think I’ll take a rifle the next trip. I’ll get some pistol practice in too. But I can’t work more than an hour or two before I start to lose focus.

I was saddened to learn that Karl Malden died earlier this week. He was a fine entertainer and I appreciate his work.

Now off to work for me.

I woke early this morning and started working on a proposal. I handled some email, then tired and decided to sleep a little longer. We decided to delay our departure home by a day so I could help my boss prepare this proposal. He didn’t get much done on it this week and neither did I. The work didn’t seriously start until yesterday.

So, I woke the second time, showered and dressed, then we met a friend at the Denny’s downtown for breakfast. Visiting with Ted is always fun and I enjoy his company immensely. But, duty called and my boss sent me an email that there were materials ready for my attention, so we said our goodbyes and headed back to the hotel. We did make a stop to pick up some food for Young Son.

I worked on the text off and on all afternoon. I think I finally finished about 1700 my time. I decided to go to Best Buy because I want a portable USB hub. I need the ability to connect more than two devices to the MBP and it would be good to power them from the USB hub as well.

I got what I needed plus a portable surge protector/multi-outlet. Both will fit in my regular kit without too much trouble. This is good.

We decided to drive over to a friend’s house to say goodbye as well. Her folks were there and her dad is my favorite pastor of all time. The pastor’s wife is like no other woman I’ve ever known. So, it was a huge treat to spend a few minutes with them. They will remain some of my favorite people so long as I draw breath. I would love to just sit with them and talk. That’s what they are.

You would know it, but I had the car washed this afternoon. So, of course, a thunderstorm popped up. The image is of the trailing edge of the set of storms, taken while we waited for pizza. The shower was welcome because it cooled the air and it was HOT this afternoon.

I’m hopeful that we’ll have a cool morning to drive. We head for home in the morning. My work here is done for the moment. Now it’s time to return home, regroup, and press on.

• The end of the earth is predicted for the Winter Solstice 2012. I think not.
• Cydia (pronounced “cyDEEa”) is an alternative source for iPhone applications.
• This cable management approach works for me. I think this is what I need to do for my home workroom.
• On the first day out, Apple sold 1 Million iPhone 3G S 3GS units.
• This FeDeX commercial has to be seen.

Work was a mix this week. We got some work done and we scoped a couple of NSF projects we think would be appropriate. We had some fun and struggled with some issues. It was a good week, but an intense week.

We were planning on heading back to Nevada in the morning, but I need to work on a proposal in the morning, so we’ll delay our departure for a day and head back Sunday morning. I think we have a decent shot at the project and want to do a good job, so I’ll spend part of my day working on the proposal, get it back to my boss, and then prepare to return home.

I need some time now to reflect and just think on things. There’s a lot facing me and many decisions to make. That means finding time and place to remove distractions and get focused on what is before me so I can execute.

Maybe there will be a little time tomorrow to play. I could use some downtime.

The image for this morning is here. It’s copyrighted, so I won’t make a copy to display on my weblog, but will direct you to Jerry’s site. It’s worth a look.

We celebrate the beginning of summer on either 20 or 21 June. It’s the longest day of the year and it’s all downhill from here until the Winter Solstice on 21 December.

It’s a beautiful morning here in Kingman, Arizona. I’ll have to get outside and make a few images before we hit the road.

I’m looking forward to seeing Flagstaff again. I think that’s a beautiful place. If I had more time, I’d stop and wander around the countryside near Flagstaff.

Now for coffee and a bite, then more road. Later!

Wife woke about 0700 — I could hear her in the shower. I started the process of backing up my drives (the desktop and the portable that holds my life’s work), then headed for the shower myself. When I finished cleaning up and putting away the few remaining things I needed for the trip, the system was finished and had shut itself down.

Young Son woke soon thereafter. We gathered things up and headed out about 0830 or so. We stopped at McD’s (of course) for a quick bite, then dropped by the post office to mail a package. No joy — the post office was closed.

We then discovered Young Son didn’t have his ID. Not good. So, we drove back to the house, picked it up, and headed out. It was getting close to 1000 by the time we left Carson City. Not good at all.

So we headed east, then south toward Tonopah. I decided to take the south route and get to the Interstate. We need to make miles.

The drive was uneventful. We stopped in Tonopah to grab a bite and refuel. It was about 70F there — absolutely beautiful.

The miles rolled by. Wife and Young Son both slept off and on. I just drove. I hit my low time about 1600 and had to stop in Beatty, Nevada. I got a bottle of Mountain Dew and napped for a few minutes, then drove on.

We stopped in Henderson, Nevada for a bite of supper, which is where I made the image. I used the camera in my iPhone. The camera in the new iPhone is significantly improved. The contrast looks better and so does the dynamic range.

Did I mention I bought an iPhone 3G S? Yeah, I did. ATT decided to offer me an early upgrade, so I took it. I use my phone so much for so many things that a faster phone is really good. My applications open a lot faster now. More later as I learn more.

We left Henderson and headed for Lake Mead and Hoover Dam. Young Son doesn’t remember the last time we passed that way, so we stopped and got out to look at the lake, then the dam. It was good.

Then it was grind-time. I just ground out the remainder of the miles to Kingman. We stopped, and decided to get a room for the night. We’ll have to make a bunch of miles tomorrow.

• The Macalope takes on the fallout from the recent WWDC. It’s witty, tongue-in-cheek, and worth the read (at least for geeky types).
• I have a bad case of hardware lust for the new iPhone 3G S based on the a number of reviews, including this one. I use my iPhone a lot — enough that a faster iPhone will be appreciated. My contract comes up the end of July. :)

1425 PDT: Software is unpacking…

1426 PDT: Software unpacked… iPhone activation server is not available…

1457 PDT: Preparing iPhone for software update…

1458 PDT: Updating iPhone software…

1501 PDT: Verifying updated iPhone software…

1504 PDT: Updating iPhone firmware…

1515 PDT: Update complete… New iPhone 3.0 software is working. Yay! My phone is not a brick!

One morning last weekend I was still pretty tired from the hectic week and it took me a little while longer than usual to wake. I opened my feed reader and was scanning, partly because I’m pruning my list, when I came across a reference on Written, Inc. to the Holocaust Museum Shooting. I read the post, then read it again. Then I read the comments section.

First of all, the incident is tragic and I’m not interesting in politicizing the act and the outcome. I’ll leave that for others who have more desire to grind axes than I do. I think it’s sad and sick that this occurred and I have no doubt there was malice and forethought in the act.

No, I want to comment on the nature of the comments I read. The cross section of comments is similar to what I read on a lot of news sites and the nature of them makes me rather loathe to read comments. It is the lack of reasoning that I find particularly discouraging. There were also some insightful comments that showed a lot of understanding and compassion.

A common theme (in general, not just limited to the comments on the tagged essay) is that it’s the conservatives, or the liberals, or the commies, or the Martians, or someone else’s invective that stirs individuals to such acts. So, Limbaugh or Gingrich is blamed for the act. They spew their bile and someone barely balanced acts on it. I don’t think so. I think every individual has a choice to make and they can choose to do good or to do ill. In this case, the man chose to do evil and extracted a high price for it.

Another common theme is that we have to do something about firearms. When acts of violence like this one occur, then there is a response that we have to do something about all these guns. I don’t believe we can ever get rid of all firearms. Even if law-abiding citizens surrendered there firearms, there would still be millions of firearms in the hands of outlaws. Furthermore, we can’t even stop illegal immigrants from crossing the borders. It would be incredibly easy to feed a black market for firearms by bringing them across the border. If a person really wanted one, they would be able to get one (or a lot).

No one put the blame squarely on the individual who committed the act. The man was there because he chose to be. He acted on his beliefs in a violent fashion that resulted in the death of an innocent man. He chose and the responsibility rests on his shoulders and in his conscience for what he did. It belongs to no one else.

We all have a choice about what we do. We all make mistakes (God knows I’ve made plenty of my own) — sometimes they have dire outcomes and serious consequences, but the choices are ours to make. And the responsibility is ours to bear.

All women should live so long as to be this kind of old lady!

Toward the end of Sunday service, the Minister asked, “How many of you have forgiven your enemies?”

About three-quarters of the congregation held up their hands.

The minister then repeated his question. All responded this time, except one small elderly lady.

“Mrs. Neely? Are you not willing to forgive your enemies?” asked the minister.

“I don’t have any.” she replied, smiling sweetly.

“Mrs. Neely, that is very unusual. How old are you?”

“Ninety-eight,” she replied. The congregation stood up and clapped their hands.

“Oh, Mrs. Neely, would you please come down in front and tell us all how a person can live ninety-eight years and not have an enemy in the world?”

The little sweetheart of a lady tottered down the aisle, faced the congregation, and said, “I outlived the bitches.”

LOL! That’s the kind of honesty I appreciate!

As the sun rose, so did Wife and we shared breakfast, then I loaded a target stand, the range gear, and drove to Walmart to find out if any pistol ammunition came in during the night. Nope. But the clerk said he had 13 cases of .223, which is a big change. I’ve heard that the supply of ammunition is starting to loosen up a bit, which is good. Disappointed, but only a little, I drove the informal range not far from Genoa, Nevada. Although later than I normally go to the range (about 1000), there was still no one around.

I set up my target at about ten yards from the tailgate of the pickup truck, then arrayed my gear on the tailgate. I realized I should get a gun rug to provide a more orderly station. I’ll get one ordered. I practiced two-handed and one-handed using the .22LR pistol (cheap to shoot) just to get some trigger time. I had trouble finding the front sight of the pistol — black front sight on black target and old eyes. After about 200 rounds, I switched to the 9mm and spent about 50 rounds with the heavier caliber.

After my last string, I started tearing down the rig and stowing things in the truck for the trip home. I was satisfied but also realize that I have some work to do. When shooting left-handed, I’m consistently pulling slightly to the right, which is either sight-picture (old eyes) or trigger control (more likely). I’m consistent, so I think this just needs some work.

When I arrived home, I stowed my gear and then fired up some charcoal. Wife wanted me to cook, so I did. After I put on the dogs, I was reminded that Daughter and I always fought over the crispy hot dogs — both of us love the taste of those that have the ends just slightly charred and a little split. The image above reminded me of her and how we played over the food. Those were good days. Today was a good day.

• A friend sent me one of those internet forwards. I went and found the original because I’m like that. (I hate pop-under ads!)
• Xavier on gun photography — take note!
• Goldman often has interesting things to say about financial matters. This essay is particularly “interesting” (I might say frightening) because of the observation that we (a collective we) may have screwed-the-pooch (fiscally). It’s worth a read.
• Needful Things is a pun on pop culture (I think). However, the services provided by the DevonThink folks are no pun; they’re useful tools.
• I may have posted the Kelly Kettle before. However, it’s such a neat piece of gear that I had to re-post it. I think one of these for the bike-camping kit or the SHTF kit would be a wise investment. This video is an excellent demonstration of the tool.