Author Archives: Pat

Donating Blood

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After work today I went over to the local Carter Blood Care office to donate blood. I don’t know if it’s being civic minded, just wanting to do something for the general good, or what, but I wanted to do it. The process was pretty painless, just one little stick. But I learned something important. Make sure you’ve had a good meal beforehand, if not you run the risk of passing out and getting a lot more attention than you’d wanted…

My next visit is already scheduled and I will be going, just with a full belly instead of a light snack…

Got My Olympics Shirt

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A co-worker has family in Beijing and was out there for the Olympic Games. He was kind enough to pick up a shirt for me. Very cool stuff, and yes, I know I’m easy to please.

Thomas Friedman Lecture

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I got to go over to UTA to see Thomas Friedman speak about his newest book. It was an interesting lecture, covering energy and population related subjects. He raised some interesting points about the so-called green movement here and talked at length about the need for the U.S. to take the global lead on weaning us from our addiction to petroleum.

One of these days I’m going to have to read his books!

So, Which One Is It Mr. Obama

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You’re not going to take our guns away? Please, can one of his followers explain this then?

http://www.nraila.org/News/Read/NewsReleases.aspx?ID=11521

A double barrel shotgun is an “assault weapon”. Yes, it’s true. Not fearmongering, not sensationalism. Here’s the explanation

Section b 1 A (x) sets the caliber ban. Everything from a 28 ga. on down are > 50 caliber.

Later on in the exceptions it says this:

“Semiautomatic assault weapon” does not include:
(A) any firearm that:
(i) is manually operated by bolt, pump, lever or slide action;

Well… I’ve got news for you, their definitions leave off any break-open action weapon, including all single shot, side-by-side, and over-under shotguns. That means that you’d have had 90 days to surrender them, destroy them, or get them out of state.

So, whether by ignorance or malice, my bet is that Mr. Obama would sign a similar bill if it came across his desk in D.C.

Mead Bottling Party

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A bunch of friends came over today to help me bottle the mead batches. It was hard work but with all the help it went well.

The good: The batch of the sweet made with the Wyeast Sweet. It’s really yummy already! The second batch is a little rough and a lot sweeter but I’m thinking a little aging will help.

The bad: The batch of the medium/dry. It’s not sweet at all, the yeast ate every last bit of sugar.

The ugly: Removing labels from wine bottles.

I’ve got a good bunch of friends and I really appreciate all of the help getting the bottles filled.

Drinking Some More Of The Cupertino Kool-Ade

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My mobile let me down again yesterday, stubbornly refusing to alert me to calls, even though it was happily buzzing away that I’d missed them. Piece of junk.

The Southlake Apple Store had iPhones in stock and now I’ve got one. The number ported over in about 15 minutes, which was a big surprise as I was expecting days of waiting.

I’m definitely not going to give a review of the phone here, there’s plenty of people who do that for a living who have beaten that dead horse into a pulp. But for me it’s excellent. I’ve found just about every app I used regularly on the Palm except for a few games, but I’ll track down time wasters, have no fear. The only big one missing right now is a PalmDOC reader. Mobi doesn’t have one out yet and I’m looking for alternatives.

It is nice to be able to read my email anywhere though…

Thank You Gustav

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It’s rare in north Texas to be able to turn off the air conditioning and open the windows to air the house out some time in the first week in September but thanks to Gustav, that’s exactly what I’ve done.

The cats are a bit perplexed at the breezes coming in from said open windows, but even the sound of the automatic feeder dropping its bounty of kibble couldn’t budge Ms. Freya from her perch.

Thanks, G.