Asia and India got smashed. 76,000+ dead. The Earth's rotation sped up by 3 microseconds. Tectonic plates moved by 98 feet (they usually move about 1cm/year, I think). This was a big deal.

Slashdot has more of the technical news.

Google has set up a tsunami help page.

As has Amazon.

CNN has a clickable list of links to places you can donate.

I'm pretty sure the Red Cross has need of donations too, but their site seems slammed at the moment.

There's also a tsunami help blog.

Help out.

Dear newscasters...

...how about using your brains for once? Please?

You run the story about the southern Maryland neighborhood that was torched and damaged/destroyed to the tune of $10 million. Then you say: "authorities believe that the fires were set to bring notariety and exposure to the "Isla de los Fuckers Del Mono"* gang". Don't you think by giving them notariety and exposure, you've just accomplished EXACTLY WHAT THEY WERE GOING FOR??? I mean, Christ, come on! Can't you just say "...were torched by a gang seeking notariety". Wouldn't that make more sense and give us viewers enough information?




*(Name has been changed to protect the idiots).

Gone Phishin'

Man, phishing schemes just keep getting dumber and dumber (or should I say "people who write phishing scheme emails have gotten dumber and dumber"). Over the last few days, I've recieved about 6 of these messages, supposedly from Yahoo (from whom I get my email access). And I quote:

====================================
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 05:21:24 +0000
From: "Yahoo!" <******@yahoo.com> View Contact Details View Contact Details
To: ******@yahoo.com
Subject: Your Yahoo! ID - ******@yahoo.com

Drae Yhaoo! Mmeber,

We muts ckceh taht yoru Yaoho! ID was registeder by real ppoele. So, to hlep Yah!oo prevtne autamoted
registsnoitar, pleaes clkci on tihs likn and colpmete coed vertacifiion precoss:

http://es.srd.yahoo.com/*%68t%54%50%3A%2F/ww%57.G%09%6fo
G%4c%45%2E%63O%6c%3Fq=%68%54Tp%3A%2F/wvf37y6fqe%2e%
25%309d%%%3309A%2%3509%2

Thkna yo
====================================

Other than changing my email address and cutting down on their long-ass bogus redirecting URL, it's verbatim. Remember the good old days? When you used to get phishing emails that looked like a PayPal letter? Or a CitiBank web page?

I guess I should click on the link once...just to see what happens. Tho, I suppose I'll be disappointed. I run Mozilla Firefox, so I doubt the trick will work. Maybe I'll get a test box up and use it's IE to see what happens. But if you can't spell a single word in the email correctly, what's the chance you managed to type a long ass URL without errors?

Right...slim.

Homicide bomber?

Why do the right-wingers call Middle Eastern suicide bombers "homicide bombers"? I've only heard this from conservatives...like the Fox News turds and (just the other day) conservative commentator Cal Thomas on my local news radio station. (I also must wonder if Thomas gets extra "conservative points" for looking like G. Gordon Liddy with a bad hair piece, but I digress).

My thoughs on this are thus: all suicide bombers are (or hope to be) homicide bombers, yet not all "homicide bombers" are (or hope to be) suicide bombers. There are two *very* different mentalities at work here. The Unibomber was a "homicide bomber". So was Timothy McVeigh (Oklahoma City bomber). However, I don't think either of those "homicide bombers" are in the same league as Middle Eastern "suicide bombers". The "suicide bomber" is willing to give up everything for his (or her) cause. Where as the "homicide bomber" is not. Quite often, the "homicide bomber" is cowardly in his (or her) attacks on the victim(s). The suicide bomber may be cowardly (in as much as the're hiding a hundred pounds of explosives and blowing up innocent civilians), but they're not cowardly in that they're trying to protect their own asses.

So come on, conservatives. Let's all call a suicide bomber a suicide bomber from now on, ok? We know they're still bad guys. You don't have to try and remind us that in addition to killing themselves, they're also killing others. We're pretty smart. We figured that out.

Holy crap!

QuakeMap might be the coolest piece of software ever created. It's definitely the coolest piece of mapping software I've ever used. Totally worth the tiny $10 registration fee.

Also extremely useful is GPSBabelWrapper, a GUI front end to the free/opensource GPSBabel program, which translates GPS data from one format to another (Magellan to Garmin, for example) since it seems QuakeMap only reads Garmin data (and I have a Magellan). I think the blame for this lies with Magellan's habit of keeping their file formats totally secret. Garmin has either allowed others to read/write their data, or was poorly designed and cracked early on :)

So here is where I picked up DT and Lee after the CCT ride:



It's the Wakefield Rec Center parking lot. From this satellite image coupled with my GPS waypoint, you can pretty much tell the exact parking space I was in. F*cking amazing. And the best part is that I have similar images/waypoints from the rest of the 20+ mile ride. Again I say "amazing".

I have *got* to get out of here

If $600k for an "average" home is the norm, I'm in the wrong area. I have no hope of breaking into a market like this.

2004 was another record year for home values, which went up 20 percent from last year

..."An average single family detached home in northern Virginia will now cost you around $600,000"

-snip-

..."The average price of a condo in northern Virginia is now around $263,000 and is virtually guaranteed to increase in value, just like other single family homes"

Maybe it's just sour grapes. I sure wish I had a $600k house I could sell and move out into the country somewhere.

I always knew that river was f*cked up

"Scientist Says Male Fish In Potomac Growing Eggs"

I've seen people fishing in that river and thought "I don't care how hungry I am, there is no f*cking way I eat anything that came out of there". I was right.

Then there's the angle that this is coming from West Virginia. There's got to be something funny to say about that. Incest, boy fish developing eggs. I'll think of it, just give me a little while...

It doesn't look like much scaled down to this size, but here is the map of the first 20+ miles (DT carried my GPS unit on after I bailed out at mile 10ish):



The much bigger 1.3MB version can be found here. You can either right-click and "save target as" or just click on it and it should open in your browser. If you're using a browser that automatically scales images (like my Firefox did), you'll need to click on the image in order to see the full sized version. I don't know if IE does this or not.

Clever title goes here

What to call this post? I had a number of things in mind Saturday. "Mein Kampf"? "Yet another bright idea"? "What the f*ck was I thinking when I signed up for this"? "So that's what 'getting your ass handed to you' feels like"?

The plan was simple enough. A group of us ("The Magnificant Seven") were to ride the entire length of Fairfax County Virginia's "Cross County Connector" commuting trail. A "commuter" trail network (yeah right!) consisting of single-track, gravel paths, paved paths, roads and sidewalks that isn't too well mapped. Some of us would have GPS units with plans to have a coherent and cohesive map by the end.

The day started bright and early; up at 6:30am, out of the house at 7, at Wakefield park to meet the other guys at 7:30 (so we can shuttle to the starting point and leave my truck at the 2/3 point). The ride was set to begin at 9am.

Sitting around Wakefield, I had some time to kill before the guys were due to arrive. I decided that since I had installed a new chain (and changed the chain setup) on my singlespeed the week before, I should maybe pull the bike off the truck and try riding it around a little. It took about 2 pedal revolutions for me to figure out something was wrong. The chain was skipping and clunking in a way that made me doubt the bike would work for the epic ride planned for the day. A quick inspection showed me that I should have followed the most basic bit of bike maintenance...when you change your chain, change your entire drivetrain (especially on a singlespeed). My rear cog was worn pretty badly and wasn't working with the new chain very well. I made the decision to take this bike back home and grab my geared full suspension rig so I could make the ride.

I make a quick call to DT to tell him I'd meet them at the Great Falls starting point then beeline for home. Once home, I grab the FS and hit the road. I haven't ridden the FS in months. I should have known this was gonna be a rough day.

I make it to the starting point with some time to spare, luckily. DT, JoeP, Graham and Randy were already there. I pump up the tires, pump up the rear shock and ride around the parking lot a bit just to test things out. Before long Lee and Dan show up and we're ready to begin.

The first obstacle is right out of the parking lot (see JoeP's blog above). A stream crossing (in 27 degree weather). It's not terribly long or deep, but the bottom is a smooth concrete thing which is algae covered and quite slippery. Most of the guys decide to take off their shoes and socks and walk across. I had already gotten my shoes and neoprene booties on and was no in the mood to take them off (the booties are a pain in the ass to get on). I decided to ride it. I figured if I washed out now, I could walk my wet, cold ass back to the truck, blast the heat and head for home.

Luckily, I made the crossing without incident. Lee, figuring that if I could do it anyone could, decided to ride it as well. He made it with only a damp foot. Everybody puts on their shoes and we take off.

About 100 yards down the trail, I try to shift gears and I get nothing. My rear thumb shifter pushes all the way to the bottom and doesn't move the derailuer. Great. Looks like I'm riding a singlespeed today after all. This one is just bigger, heavier and squishier than the one I wanted to bring.

The trails at this end of the CCT are actually pretty nice single track. Some of the CCT follows (or even becomes) part of the Difficult Run streambed trail network which is a nice length of trail. More technical then Wakefield, but easily ridable by somebody of my (fatboy) skill level :)

The non shifting bike was annoying, but something I thought I could live with. That was until the first climb when the bike decided that *it* knew when to shift better than *I* did. It would ghost-shift at the worst possible times. And, it would ghost shift in both directions! Trying to climb, *clunk*, pedaling would become nearly impossible, then 20 feet later, *clunk*, I'd be spinning like a madman. It was f*ckin' frustrating.

I managed to complete a bit over 10 miles with the group before mechanicals, my lungs and my legs did me in. Guess it was a bit silly to undertake a 33 mile ride after not being on the bike for weeks and weeks. I was shown a bail-out point pretty close to my house, so I took it. It was a neighborhood road leading to a main road. The plan from there was to call in the calvary (either the girl or the sister) to come rescue me. It took a while to get through to either of them, so I started making my way towards McDonald's. I was dying for some bad-for-you food that didn't taste like power bar and some salt. I ended up going a couple of miles on the road before I finally was able to contact the girl to come to my rescue (thanks baby!). She took me back to the starting point to get my truck. I then got a call from Lee to see what the situation was for shuttling. He had plans late in the day, and the epic was taking longer than expected. I told him I'd meet them at Wakefield (since I was supposed to be the shuttle from there anyway) and headed back to the park.

I got to Wakefield and sat in the truck for a while waiting for the guys to arrive. When they did, there were two fewer riders than when I had split from them. Seems the CCT had taken it's toll on a couple of the other guys too. That made me feel better :). Anyway, as we were packing Lee's stuff up in my truck, DT decided that he'd had enough of the CCT for the day too. It seems that he'd taken a bit of a spill in the last few miles, and that coupled with some leg cramp action were enough. We managed to squeeze him and his gear into the truck as we said out goodbyes to JoeP and Randy, who were determined to finish the full 33 miles (congrats guys!).

So the shuttle headed back to Great Falls and dropped DT and Lee off at their vehicles. I then headed for home and as many hours of doing nothing as I could manage.

I feel safer already!

My sis just got back from a trip to Vegas. As she and a friend were going through the security at the airport there, they both got "flagged" by TSA for a full search. While the guards were digging through their stuff they came across a bunch of $5 cheesy Vegas souvanir cigarette lighters (my sis had 4, her friend had 10...slot machines, boobies, etc). The guards said that TSA rules now stated that each passenger could only take two lighters of any kind (regardless if they are full or empty...where's the logic?) onto the plane. Their options were 1)trash the lighters or 2)go back out of security to the Mailboxes Etc. store and ship the lighters home, then go back through the fun of security. They opted to just toss the excess lighters.

After getting through security, they stopped at one of the newspaper/magazine/snack stores and found to thier surprise that they sold...wait for it...cheesy Vegas souvenir lighters! My sister asked and was told that there were no restrictions on how many lighters a person could buy from this store. When she asked how many they had in stock, the employee said "probably 20 cases".

So after being hassled by security to ensure they only had 2 lighters each on them, they could conceivably have gotten on the airplane with 200 lighters.

Good work TSA. Thanks for keeping me safe. Somebody might want to review that policy.

So *that's* what separates the pros from the amateurs

The pros see an opportunity to practice their skills and make some people happy at the same time. The amateurs hang out in their office oblivious to the opportunity slipping by....

This afternoon, my company had it's "holiday party". We're a pretty small shop, so it was a pretty small affair, held mostly in the conference room. Each year, the same guy dresses up as Santa and wows all the kids in the "North Pole" (aka: lobby).

Being mostly the anti-social type, I elected to hang out in my office for the most part and avoid the whole thing. As quittin' time approached, I packed my stuff and hit the road. On the way out, I had to run the gauntlet of the "North Pole", Santa and all the kiddies. No biggie. I watched my step (cuz nothin' pisses off a co-worker like squashing their kids), made small talk with the parents (my co-workers) and headed for the elevator. When I got out to my truck, it occurred to me that slung over my shoulder today (like every other day) was my fancy-pants camera. I could have been hanging out in the "North Pole" taking pix of all the co-worker's kids on Santa's lap for them (since I'm such a nice guy). Not a very bright guy, but nice enough. All they had going on was a Polaroid in the hands of the office receptionist for quick snaps for the parents.

So I grab my camera and head back up to the office to see if I can get any shots before the "Santa time" ends. Of course, I get up there as they're pretty much wrapping up. Damn. I'm an idiot.

The one good piece of this is that my boss and his wife and newborn son come up about this time and decide to put Jr. on Santa's lap for a minute. So of all the kids who were at the party, I got 3 shots of my boss' kid on Santa's lap. Nothing like a little brown-nosing to get you ahead in this world, right?

Common Courtesy

Dear sir(s) or madam(s),

If you insist on buying these gigantic, "luxury" SUVs (Lexus, Infinity, Cadillac, Lincoln, or god forbid H2) please at least have the common decency to drive over the 12 foot wide, 3 inch tall neighborhood speed hump (not the 6" wide 6" tall, bone-jarring kind) somewhat faster than 0.02 MPH. Both you and your ultra-plush behemoth will survive the encounter. I promise.

Love,

COPWAAOSH
(Coalition of People Who Aren't Afraid of Speed Humps, LLC)

Well, duh

What's the point of making a toll road if we don't force
everybody to use it???



Plans for Bike Path Parallel to Proposed ICC Dropped
Updated: Thursday, Dec. 16, 2004 - 4:44 AM

"ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - Don't expect a hike and bike trail to be included in plans for the Intercounty Connector.

The Washington Post reports that Maryland transportation officials have dropped plans to include a network of trails that would have roughly paralleled the route of the 18-mile toll road.

They cite rising costs estimates which have now topped $2 billion for the road connecting Interstate 270 in Montgomery County to Interstate 95 in Prince George's. The latest projected cost is about $400 million more than previously announced.

Officials say scrapping plans for the bike path would trim $100 million from its cost.

State officials say they'll keep some of the right of way acquired for the trails so that some sections of it could eventually be built."

(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Souvenir

When I went to San Francisco a few weeks back, I found the coolest souvenir ever:



It's a 11x17" poster for "The San Francisco Bay Guardian" newspaper, a free Bay area rag (like the DC City Paper).

(Sorry about the weird angle. I had to take the pic from off to the side to avoid the reflection of the flash).

Oh man! I just noticed that I wrote this blog entry up on 11/3 and never posted it! Damnit! Oh well, it still holds true (even if it's not as funny as it was then)...

Always look on the bright side of life [de de, de de de de de de]

When republicans give you lemons...make lemonaide! Here are my personal reasons to not be totally depressed at this "victory" for "morality" (your reasons may vary):

1-I'll never need an abortion.

2-I don't have any gay lover to marry.

3-Go ahead and drill for oil in the Alaska Wildlife Refuge. It's a big state, I'm sure there's lots of other pretty stuff to see up there.

4-I'm too old/fat to be drafted. And i'm sure as hell not gonna sign up on my own for the Bush-Neverending-War-Machine.

5-The don't draft girls, do they?

6-There are 4 more years to try and catch the real guy who wants to kill us all.

7-All the cool punk bands have 4 more years of great material.

OK, I lied. I'm not looking on the bright side...I'm gonna cry.

God Save the Queen!

At least somebody is looking out for me.

Raising standards, British supermarket trolleys redesigned for taller shoppers

Dear America,

Can ya take a hint?

Love,

gary
(6'6")

Welcome to life in the new world (order)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A portrait of President Bush using monkeys to form his image led to the closure of a New York art exhibition over the weekend and anguished protests on Monday over freedom of expression.

(Link courtesy of www.fark.com)

Is this hypocrytical?

It occurred to me Saturday that I view old/mainstream/classic rock acts (i.e. Led Zepplin, Aerosmith) who sell their work for TV commercials as sellouts. Yet I see small/underground/unknown people (like Dabrye, the artist whos song is used in the Motorola R3 phone commercial where everything in the house folds up into the phone and Nick Drake (used in a VW commercial a couple of years ago) as being ok. They're just trying to get thier song out into the world, whereas the old acts are just trying to heap more ca$h on top of their already massive fortunes.

Is that fair?...

Bah, who cares. I've heard enough Zepplin and Aerosmith to last me the rest of my life. Sellouts.

Well, that didn't work out as planned

So last night was the peak of the Geminid Meteor shower, and supposedly this year was gonna be a good one for viewing. Now that I have a decent camera, I got the bright idea to go out into the cold (32-35*F) and try photographing it. (In a prefect world, I would get an image like the one in that last link).

The sky at home in Farifax VA was cloudless, which gave me hope, however there is so much light pollution that you can *almost* see the moon at night...if you try really hard. So at 10pm I packed my stuff into the truck and headed west. I knew of a couple of potential spots west of here (in Loudoun county) that might be dark enough (and have a decent view of the sky without buildings and streetlights and trees and buildings and minimalls getting in the way) so I headed that direction.

Unfortunately, as I headed west, the clouds started to thicken. At first they were patchy, but as I got to my secret viewing location (which kinda sucked anyway due to the giant Home Depot nearby) there were a lot of patches. So, I decided to keep heading west and see what I could see. Unfortunately, the thickening continued. I made it all the way out to Leesburg before turning back. At one point on the return trip the clouds cleared a bit, so I decided to take and exit off of the highway and try exploring the back-roads for a bit. This proved fruitless as well. While it was significantly darker out there, a thin layer of clouds moved over the area and pretty much washed out any chance of viewing. So around 11pm I headed back towards home.

Of course, when I got back home in Farifax, the sky was crystal clear.

Ah well. I'm glad it's an annual shower. Maybe next year will work out better.

And now for something a little less serious and a little more self-serving

Sellout...

The girl and I exhibited our wares at the twice-yearly Red Cross craft fair last Thursday. I managed to sell a few pix and had hours of ego-stroking compliments about my work (almost worth more than the $$$ IMO). Here are the images that sold (with links to the full sized web images on eighteenpercent). All of my prints were post-processed by me and matted (some using stock mats, others using custom mats cut by yours truly). Some were framed, others weren't.


http://www.eighteenpercent.net/index.php?id=53




http://www.eighteenpercent.net/index.php?id=116




http://www.eighteenpercent.net/index.php?id=74
(I actually sold two copies of this one!).




http://www.eighteenpercent.net/index.php?id=61




http://www.eighteenpercent.net/index.php?id=9



These shots got a lot of "oohs" and "ahhhhs" and compliments, but nobody actually laid out the cash to buy them. Money talks, bullsh*t walks people! ;)


http://www.eighteenpercent.net/index.php?id=33




http://www.eighteenpercent.net/index.php?id=15
(I've reworked this image, so the current version looks much better than this version, IMO).




http://www.eighteenpercent.net/index.php?id=57




http://www.eighteenpercent.net/index.php?id=103
(I had to cut a custom mat for this one...as difficult as that process was, I should have charged a friggin' premium on this shot!!).




http://www.eighteenpercent.net/index.php?id=67

oh please don't be real, oh please don't be real, oh please don't be real



http://www.internationaldelivers.com
/site_layout/severe/cxt.asp

http://www.internationaldelivers.com/
site_layout/news/newsdetail.asp?id=595

Thanks to DT for the links.

Mommy, I'm scared.

So it seems the battle is lost (and I have to admit that I didn't do my part to prevent it):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles
/A58230-2004Dec11.html

WEEK IN REVIEW (from the Washington Post)
Dec. 5-11
Sunday, December 12, 2004; Page C04

Dense Development Plans Approved Fairfax Assents to Project Near Vienna Station

"The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors gave unanimous approval to a developer's plan for a mini-city of more than 5,000 office workers and residents in a dense development near the Vienna Metro station.

Fairlee-MetroWest, to rise at the end of Metro's Orange Line in central Fairfax, would be the densest development within reach of Metro in the county's prosperous enclaves outside the Capital Beltway. The developers hope to replace what had been a neighborhood of 61 single-family homes on 56 acres, which they purchased and razed, with offices, stores and 2,250 homes in a dozen buildings up to 14 stories tall and luxury townhouses. Condominiums would sell for $400,000 to $800,000".

And another take on the story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles
/A58118-2004Dec11.html (If you wanna read this and the Post bugs you to register, use www.bugmenot.com. They also have a Firefox extension which makes using the site extra easy).

Fucking $400,000-$800,000 for CONDOS???? I hate this town. The neigborhood they're flattening and replacing with this mess is literally about 200 yards from my front door. I've walked over there a number of times, watching the destruction, trying to find interesting subjects to take pictures of, feeling uncomfortable about the impending doom.

The most annoying thing to me is that they're presenting this "pack 'em in, charge 'em way too much for the real estate, and tax the shit outta 'em" as a way to stop sprawl. Hey, fuckheads, listen up...what do you think all the people who live near this metropolis are gonna do when you turn what used to be their suburbs into a pretend city/mini-mall hell? They're gonna do the same thing I am...they're gonna sprawl the fuck out of here...and fast!! Tho, I guess that's what you want to happen. Then you'll have more home sales at unreasonably high values and you'll reap the taxes (both sales and property taxes).

I guess the one thing that I'm greatful for in this situation is that I'm renting here.

So long, suckers.

mmmmm...

I wish there was a US Recommended Daily Allowance of bacon.

LiveStrong

Heh heh.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - A hospital chain is taping over patients' LiveStrong wristbands because they are yellow - the same color as the "do not resuscitate" bands it puts on patients who do not want to be saved if their heart stops.

Full (short) story here.

Dimebag

Oh, and while on the subject of FoxNewsNetwork, it was fun to watch the progression of "Dimebag" Darryl (the Pantera guitarist shot by the nutcase in Ohio...a situation that really, *really* sucks) throughout the day.

I started seeing the news around 8am when they reported the story as "a guitarist for an underground metal band". By 9am, he was "Dimebag Darryl, guitarist for Damage Plan and former guitarist of Pantera". By about 11, he was "Dimebag Darryl, former guitarist for one of the biggest underground metal bands, Pantera". By lunch, he had become "Dimebag Darryl, former guitarist for the widely popular 80s and 90s metal band Pantera". By 1pm he was "Dimebag Darryl, one of the most influential guitarists in metal" and by 2pm he had become "Dimebag Darryl, as influential to the heavy metal music scene as Eddie Van Halen was to rock and roll" (I'm not making that up, they said that). Congrats on your popularity gain Darryl. Sorry you had to die to achieve it.

Guess it's true what they say, "everybody loves you when you're dead".

Now playing: Pantera - Far Beyond Driven.

Yay Christians!

With the 'publicans winning the election, FoxNewsNetwork feels it's been given carte blanche to be as christian as possible regarding the holidays. Most TV stations have a generic "Happy Holidays" messages. I was forced to sit in fron of FoxNewsNetwork all day yesterday and saw at least two different messages. Both began with a bible verse followed by the "John 3:16" type of identification. That faded, and the next screen came up saying something to the effect of "Have a safe and Merry Christmas". No "Happy Holidays" no "Hey Jews, we like you too!" no "Sorry you don't celebrate Christmas you Jehova's Witnesses, you're missing some really neat shopping opportunities!".

These next four years scare the shit outta me.

Family Values

This has prolly been all over the net and in everyone's inbox already, but I just got a copy of it and thought it too good *not* to post:

===========================================================

October 4, 2004:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/10/20041004-7.html

Bush introduced Mike and Sharla Hintz, a couple from Clive, whom he said benefited from his tax plan.
Last year, because of the enhanced the child tax credit, they received an extra $1,600 in their tax refund, Bush said. With other tax cuts in the bill, they saved $2,800 on their income taxes.
They used the money to buy a wood-burning stove to more efficiently heat their home, made some home improvements and went on a vacation to Minnesota, the president said.
"Next year, maybe they'll want to come to Texas," Bush quipped.
Mike Hintz, a First Assembly of God youth pastor, said the tax cuts also gave him additional money to use for health care.
He said he supports Bush's values.
"The American people are starting to see what kind of leader President Bush is. People know where he stands," he said.
"Where we are in this world, with not just the war on terror, but with the war with our culture that's going on, I think we need a man that is going to be in the White House like President Bush, that's going to stand by what he believes.


But then...December 8, 2004...

http://www.woi-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2662511&nav=1LFXTwUP

A Des Moines youth pastor is charged with the sexual exploitation of a child.
KCCI learned that the married father of four recently turned himself in to Johnston police.
Rev. Mike Hintz was fired from the First Assembly of God Church, located at 2725 Merle Hay Road, on Oct. 30. Hintz was the youth pastor there for three years.
Police said he started an affair with a 17-year-old in the church youth group this spring.


Here is another threaded story about the same thing:

http://www.theiowachannel.com/politics/3978990/detail.html

Way to pick 'em Georgie. That's my kinda family values.

Bike Walk Virginia

Virginia is considering offering a "Bikes Belong" license plate:



Only catch is that they need 350 orders (or they'll just accept a check for $3,500 I think) by December 27. They currently have 169 orders. The plates only cost $10 over the price of normal plates. For more info and an application [PDF] visit the plate sponsor's homepage.

I've scored one each for the girl and me.

Vehicular Reboot

Sitting in traffic on my way to work this morning, I throw a CD into my car's CD player and nothing happens. The little "CD In" light comes on, so the drive knows there's a disk loaded, but it won't play it. It spins around for about 30 seconds then spits the disk out with an "ERR" on the display screen. I then try two or three other disks with the same result. So I decide to do what any self-respectng tech guy would do...

Reboot my car.

"Luckily" I was going about 0 miles per hour cuz of the traffic, so I turn the key and kill the car entirely. I sit there for about 5 seconds, then fire it back up. The CD player spins up and the disk starts playing as if nothing had ever happened.

All I could think about was the old email joke If Microsoft Built Cars