grindmonkeh

Post-vaca to-do:
Fix the sticky throttle on my bike. Wash. Wax.
Make the ungodly noise from the lawn mower go away.
Tow riding mower home and fix it.
Run heavier gauge power wire from battery to trunk.
Oil change the HHR.
Trim the Hedges.
Read something (offline).

If it's not bad enough that George Carlin died, I just found out that Stan fucking Winston, idol of mine, died on Sunday from multiple myeloma. There is a wonderful tribute on Ain't It Cool News here and a video tribute (that I can't embed into LJ for some reason) here. A legend truly has been lost.

• 06:25 Completed day one of the motorcycle rider safety course yesterday...day two begins about now. #
• 18:34 Day two complete of the motorcycle rider safety course. Good fun on a 200cc Yamaha and free gas. #

Automatically dumped from the dustpan.

• 11:55 Firefox 3 DL'd...won't have a chance to muck with it for another three days. Leaving town for vaca. #

Automatically dumped from the dustpan.

• 21:16 Coached Piper's T-Ball team this evening...too much fun. Some of the kids are real pieces of work. I don't know how teachers do it. #

Automatically dumped from the dustpan.

My mother-in-law asked me if I was interested in a trip to Hong Kong. Aparrently she might have a 2 person vacation lined up, and since my wife is phobic of trans-oceanic travel she asked me if I wanted to go. I know there are some very worldly people (that may or may not read this) who could give me the highs and lows of a trip to China. What are the must-see attractions?

I've found this:

View Larger Map

It appears that the Great Wall is 600 or so miles from Hong Kong. Any nearby cities that have worthwhile attractions as well? ANY info is welcome and appreciated.

Still watching the Lioness-cam.

Picked up my mini-apes for the roadster and a round mirror to invert on the left. Installation awaits.

• 10:07 @RevoltMag No adrenaline...but how about an o-face. I randomly stumbled onto a gallery of o-faces, and at once I knew you'd want this one. #
• 10:07 @RevoltMag tinyurl.com/6hegeh #

Automatically dumped from the dustpan.

My nonproductive Monday at work has been spent mucking around with Twitter and trying to export the entries into LJ via an IM (GTalk or LJ's). So far I'm too lacking in the brainworks to figure it out. I slept like shit last night. My lunch was inconspicuously still in the refrigerator as I spacebrained out the door and to work and now I'm hungreh.

I'm amazed that this data center didn't take any water, but the south side of town is much lower and seems to have taken the most damage. The bridges and roads of my normal route of commute are either still under water or royally fuct, but we're taking an alternative route that's not much longer.

(My boss and comrade) Bill's daughter and son-in-law have lost their home. They waited 12 hours for a boat to evacuate them...2 hours after the Mayor made a statement on television that everyone was safe and receiving professional attention. Their home is a modular and won't likely ever be 'right' even after insurance fixes it, and in a lot of cases it's not surprising if the owners simply walk away and let the bank take the house back without throwing any money away on it...and fear of these same events reoccurring is a big factor as well. It'ss a big shitshake for a person's credit, but some consider writing it off entirely to be the smartest decision.

I just heard that the Prairieton Levy is about to break and flood their home again. Apparently they had just been there an hour ago getting some essentials and personal effects.

On a lighter note, I gave Bran her first riding lesson on a 250cc-ish Honda on Saturday and she picked it up like a natural. By the end of the day she was on the Harley and we went for a short spin around Smallville. In short order we had a pig on our tail, one expired tag, one tag registered to a dead guy, and a rider without the likes of the permit. Bran noticed too and killed it twice at the next stop sign. I turned around, waved, and tried to give the cop a "she's learning!" smile while I hoped he was checking out her rear instead of my expired plate. I had planned a trip to the DMV on Saturday to renew both cars and the roadster and to transfer Virgil's bike into our name, but the water had the highway blocked until the late afternoon. The DMV closes at noon on Saturdays.





Twitter must be one oversubscribed mofo with all the server time-outs. Circle the lagwagons.

We had some pretty severe weather last night that has resulted in major flooding in Terre Haute and lots of closed roads in both Indiana and Illinois. We got really lucky here further south as the major rainfall (10"!) tracked north of us. Indiana is in a state of emergency, I-70 is closed, and it looks like a large number of homes have been ruined. The water filled homes fast, with currents strong enough to topple refrigerators. People are being urged to stay inside if possible, but instead they're driving around, gawking, "showing-off", and stalling out their vehicles.

I called the operations center and luckily we're not taking any water there. We'll likely have to close it over the weekend since our student workers won't be able to commute in to work their shifts. Probably not a big deal...just so long as it stays dry.

If I had to guess, I'd say we would be best to take a match to our cabin after the water subsides. In 2005 the flood level rose high enough to do a lot of damage to it, and the water is higher now comparatively. The amount of work required then to get it inhabitable again was ridiculous. I'd be surprised if dad didn't level it, and that will be sad but necessary.

On a brighter note, now I don't have to go to the DMV today!

Our doggers came home on Saturday morning and they are much happier and healthier. That afternoon we went on Bran's dad's memorial poker run, and all in all put a couple hundred miles on the bike over the weekend. The rest of the week looks to be plagued by rain, but I'd like to (use the dry garage and) change the oil in Virg's bike if I get the free time and ambition. I got an excellent deal on a bike-jack, so the maintenance and mods I plan on doing will be plausible and/or more convenient.

Bran learned that the only good way to rid of the parvo virus is to clean or spray with bleach mixed with water. So on Saturday I grabbed the bottle that she had mixed up and was going outside when I remembered that I'd need to pick up any dog-poo out of the yard as well. So I set the bottle down and jogged back to the kitchen to grab a couple of plastic sacks, and then jogged back, grabbed the bottle, went outside, and sprayed the lawn while picking up poo. A good twenty minutes later I was finished, with my hands worn out from spray-spray-spraying and a sack semi-full of poo. On my way back inside I noticed something...fragrant? With some cautious sniffing I realized it was coming from my hands...and that it smelled like...Fabreze? What the hell? I looked at the bottle I was holding and realized that I'd grabbed the WRONG one on my way out the door, and that I'd FABREZED the whole front yard. And that I'd have to RESPRAY the whole yard with the bottle of bleach and water that I'd set down too close to the bottle of Fabreze. So now, my lawn is going to smell nice until the rain washes it away or the bleach kills it.

Good times.