A bit of an anniversary - it was five years ago today that I cooked myself my first breakfast in my house. A little notable, since I’ve still got bunches of boxes that I haven’t unpacked around the house. On the other hand, there are only two major projects left on the list from when I moved in: re-do the bathroom, and replace the furnace (and a little surprisingly to me, the furnace replacement will be the cheaper of the two). I’ve already got a quote on the bathroom work and will probably do that sometime in 2009.
So as years go, not a bad one. Not great either, what with that financial meltdown freaking people out and making my investments worth a lot less than I’d hoped, but hey, at least my ESPP shares will be bought at a very reasonable price this year, and the money going into my 401k will be buying more than I expected.
On the political front, we’ll soon have a new crop of bums in government, but I don’t foresee any huge changes. They’ll still be statists wanting to increase the control they exert over us. Sigh.
But hey, a new year begins tomorrow, and this is supposed to be a time of hope, right? Well, here’s hoping for a tolerable 2009 for all of us. Or maybe even a good one.
- Here’s a good take on Why the “Gun Show Loophole” matters, and why Democrat’s claims that closing the loophole “wouldn’t change anything for law-abiding citizens,” is an outright lie. [endwar]
- Ugh. Teen with Home Chemistry Lab Arrested for Meth, Bombs. Even though he wasn’t making either. He was just fiddling around with a home chemistry lab. But of course We Can’t Have That. He might learn something. [boing boing]
- The auto-maker bailout eventually went through, the not-so-big-anymore three got buckets of money. Now Chrysler Faces Criticism for Full-Page ‘Thank You’ Ads, as they prove they really have no idea what to do with money. Remind me again why
we
bailed their sorry asses out, please. [fark!]
With the long break from work, I’ve been lazing around the house quite a bit. It helped that I got sick on Christmas Eve and didn’t feel like leaving the house for a few days, but now I’m recovered, and starting to get a little bit of cabin fever.
In the meantime though, I’ve spent a lot of time futzing around on facebook. I’ve come to the conclusion that Sitting on Facebook is like having a social life. Except you don’t have to wear pants!
Yeah, it might be slightly more sociable than locking yourself up in a Unabomber Shack, but it’s not really all that sociable. I suspect I’ll head out this evening to see some actual people in person down at the local watering hole.
Plus there are things to do around the house this week. Below is a short set of my facebook statuses from today, so you can see the kind of stuff I’ve been doing:
- Dave is making a to-do list. That’s like getting stuff done, right?
- Dave has moved on to prioritizing his list. That’s even more pseudo-productive, right?
- Dave is tire from all this list-making and prioritizing. Is it time for a break yet?
- Dave is done with his post list-prioritization break. Now where’s that list?
- Dave found the list! Oh, look at the time! I’d better make lunch plans!
As you can see, it’s just been a hotbed of activity around here this morning. I only hope the afternoon (after some lunch, and perhaps a nap) is as productive as this morning was! Speaking of which, I’d better get to it: it’s time to leave for lunch soon.
- My first (and second) pass on the list of 2009 Minnesota Gun Shows is done. Hopefully I’ve got most of them now and won’t have to do too many updates during the year.
- People who live in Minnesota are sometimes seen as odd among those living in the rest of the country. Witness: Great Lakes surfers pay no mind to frigid temps. The breaks on Superior are apparently only good in the winter when the wind’s blowing like crazy, and chunks of ice up to bowling-ball size actually make the waves better.
- It’s the end of the year, which means it’s time for the Dave Barry Year in Review: Bailing out of 2008. A fun few minutes of reading.
Yesterday saw me driving through Wyoming then Virginia. Then across the continental divide. And then back through Virginia and Wyoming. All without leaving Minnesota, and in the name of picking up some pig to fill my freezer.
Other than that, I was kinda busy with work last week. Then with snow and relaxing over the weekend. Today’s basically trying to wrap up some business-related things and paying the bills before the upcoming holiday. Nothing too stressful, but it needs to be done.
Updates? Well, I’ll try to keep up on them around here, but it’s pretty obvious I’ve been slacking lately. And with year-end coming, it’s time to update the Minnesota Gun Shows list for 2009, so that’ll take some of my energy as well. I guess we’ll see.
- This video titled Sara, 13-yrs girl, plays RUSH–YYZ with stick performance seems to be the real deal. I can’t tell if she’s got every stick-twirl exactly correct, but damn, that girl has practiced. And apparently she’s been a Rush fan at least since she was 10. Look out, Neil, someone younger is after your job. [metafilter]
- Hmm. I wonder if I could stage some photos for The Far side Reenactments Pool with Squishycows over the holidays. It seems like it might be a project that would fit my time and mood just fine. [metafilter]
Looking out the window a bit ago I noticed that it was raining. This is not “normal” for this time of year in Minnesota. And when I checked the weather forecast, the overnight low this evening is supposed to be below zero (Fahrenheit). For some reason, I do not think this will end well.
I haven’t had much to blog lately. Been doing status updates on Facebook and that seems to suck some of the energy away from this. Then again, it’s also winter and I don’t have a lot going on just now, either.
- Here’s a nice little list of The 10 Worst Predictions for 2008. They’re right up there, I think. [flutterby]
- Here’s how you could be Ducking an iPhone Annoyance. While the referenced words aren’t ones that give me problems on my phone very often, there are plenty of other words that it wants to
correct
for me that I’ll be adding somewhere. [boing boing] - This is interesting. Mario makes way for Shakespeare on Nintendo DS in HarperCollins deal. If I carried my DS around at all anymore, I’d be tempted to try it out, but now I want an iPhone version.
- More on the anti-social networking front. jr’s working on Opening the Unclosed and maybe he’ll help come up with a solution. [jr]
- A short essay on Facebook and the Social Dynamics of Privacy. More stuff to think about. [boing boing]
Earlier this week, I had the first day of the season in which I drove to and from work in the dark. It’ll continue to happen for a couple months, depending on how long the days are, but for me, that marks the real beginning of winter here in Minnesota.
As it happened, that day was dark for other reasons. Only one guy from the Minnesota office was “restructured” out the door, but some of my cow-orkers were freaked out. Me? Well, I lived through five years at Lame Rasters, so layoffs aren’t all that stressful for me anymore. I basically just put my head down and got a lot of stuff done. But then the meetings began, and they’re still going on today. Oy. Sometimes the touchy-feely California culture of the company I work for gets on my nerves. Couldn’t we have some nice Scandahoovian stoicism, please? I don’t need another meeting telling me that things are fine. Either things really are fine and I’ll figure that out on my own, or it’s an attempt to sugar-coat a turd, and that will become pretty obvious with the first bite. Wasting my time with meetings doesn’t really help get the work done, which is, I’m pretty sure, what I’m supposed to be doing in exchange for the pile of electrons that goes into my checking account every couple weeks.
- And speaking of dark, when I found out recently that Heineken had bought both Murphy’s and Beamish, I was a little worried. Now Turly points out Beamish brewery to close, 120 jobs lost and all I can say is
Argh.
Dark indeed. [turly] - The Star Tribune lets you look inside the Minnesota Senate recount and
Take the Franken-Coleman Ballot Challenge.
You can see and vote on the contested ballots if you register. At this point, I don’t really care which of the carpet-bagging clowns we end up with. I just want it to be done. [metafilter] - Dan and the flutterbarians have some comments about my bit on Anti-social networking from last week. And Aaron pointed out this perspective Friends in a Facebook World from The Boston Globe. Apparently I’m not the only one thinking about these things. [flutterby]