Friday was a pretty normal day. Some work, some errands, and a party in the evening. The party was fun, but I couldn’t stick around as long as I wanted to because I had to head up to mom’s on Saturday. There were even a couple cute gals there I got to talk to for a bit. I’ll ignore the fact that many were married and concentrate on the fact that I had fun.
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| chowing down |
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Saturday, I made the weekly trip up to mom’s, battling 30-45 mph winds the whole way. For some reason, my truck doesn’t get especially good mileage when the speed of the truck relative to the air is over 100mph. And of course on the way home, the wind had shifted enough that it was a cross-wind, so the mileage wasn’t too great that way, either.
All day Saturday, the temperature had been dropping. After refilling mom’s bird-feeder with sunflower seeds, I got to snap a picture of one of the squirrels huddling behind it, somewhat sheltered from the wind, and stocking up on fuel for the cold that was to come.
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| baby, it’s cold outside |
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Sunday morning, sure enough, it was cold. The picture of the thermometer is from the one outside my bathroom window. It typically runs a couple degrees above the “real” temperature, due to some warmth coming from the house. In any case, it was pretty darned chilly out there.
But the cold-snap was a one-day thing. It warmed up during the day on Sunday as I hung out around the house, napping, catching up on bad TV, and generally resting up from a week of too much excitement.
And then this morning as I’m writing this, I hear rain hitting the windows of the house. The temperature outside is below freezing, and snow is likely during the day, but either my neighbors are hosing down my house, or things are warm enough higher in the sky that I’m getting rain. That’s going to make for a day where I’m awfully glad to be working from home, I think. It also makes me wonder whether I’ve still got any salt left from last year. I should salt the front sidewalk so the mailman doesn’t take a header out there.
- I like looking at other folks’ photos, but Unphotographable: an account of pictures missed is compelling in its own way. It’s accounts of pictures that couldn’t be taken. [holy schmoly]
- Speaking of photography, AutoStitch sounds pretty darned cool. Too bad it’s only for Windows. [holy schmoly]
- Combining the best of photography and a seasonal note, there’s the Scared of Santa photo gallery. Classic. And if that doesn’t put you in the holiday mood, you can download MP3s of the songs from Bah & the Humbugs - Fahrenheit 12/25. Even though it’s probably too late to buy a CD for this year, reading the lyrics, makes them sound pretty fun. [metafilter]
- Hey, I’m not the only one who’s an Angry old man about the self-serve checkouts. For me, it’s Home Depot where I despise the machines the most. Especially since the one person they have who’s supposed to keep four of the things working is generally either incompetent or uncaring, two of the four machines are waiting for that person to fix them, and the other two are backed up with people buying things too big for the self-serve line. If you’re wondering, the simplest way to put the scanners at Home Depot in a state that requires operator intervention is to set something next to the bag (on the scale) to free up your hands for scanning. I can’t quite figure how this is supposed to make my shopping more efficient.
- Yet another New CD copy-lock technology nears market, and this one claims that you’ll actually be able to play your music on all of your devices, but not copy it around. I’m pretty sure I won’t have any reason to buy a disc with the scheme. [slashdot]
- An Iowa ISP Awarded $1 Billion in Anti-Spam Suit, thanks to an Iowa law allowing $10 per spam, and tripled damages under RICO. [fark!]