- Saturday, Man Struck In Accidental Shooting At Gun Show. It happened just as I was walking in. An off-duty Minneapolis officer working as a security guard had a negligent discharge, and a fragment hit a retired St. Paul officer who was attending the show (or also working security—accounts differ). I didn’t notice him leaning back in his chair. It looked (when I looked over after hearing the shot) as if he had said something to a guy leaving the show with a long-gun. After some back and forth and as I saw the puff of smoke rising from behind the table, the cop asked,
Was that mine?
and then he sheepishly place his pistol on the table before pulling it back below the table. The police spokesman of course says it was an accident (or as Vinnie saysa wardrobe malfunction
), but I’m dubious. Guns, especially in a holster, don’t just go off by themselves unless the owner has been severely negligent in his maintenance duties. Or put his finger inside the trigger-guard. - Joey pointed to The Rules of Gunfighting. Very sage advice. [accordionguy]
- Answering the question: Are You An Expert? with an affirmative might not be a good thing. [reed]
- Brilliant! How Bailouts Work: A Photo Editorial gave me one of the few smiles I’ve had lately over the political goings-on in the fever swamps of DC. And yeah, it contains some photoshoppery, but it still made me laugh. [accordionguy]
- Here’s some Bad news for Internet pornographers: 6th Circuit upholds record keeping requirements spelled out in section 2257. Wanna know more about it? Go see Stephen Haynes’ explanations (which have NSFW photos): part 1, part 2 and part 3
After the election last November, I wondered to myself how long the honeymoon with our new president would last. Turns out the answer is that it didn’t take a month for him to start disappointing people. Seems inevitable when you consider how high expectations were in some quarters, but that won’t stop me from feeling the odd bit of schadenfreude now and again over the next four years.
Does that feeling make me a lesser person? Well, it’s probably not an embiggening emotion, but I think as long as I try to minimize the neener-neeners,
I’ll be okay. That said, well… neener-neener!
- Ahh, my four years of schadenfreude begins: Obama fails his first test on civil liberties and accountability — resoundingly and disgracefully. My expectation that we’d see more of the same is turning out to not be too far off the mark. [boing boing]
- Here’s how to Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan. Less clear is that it will probably mean an end to home births and other
alternative
health care. [vinnie] - Syl Arena leads the smackdown as PhotographerMentors.com Steals Blog Content From Leading Bloggers. [mcnally]
- The story of a Chicago photographer cleared of all charges sounds like a black eye for the Chicago Police, but I doubt it’ll change much… [sportsshooter]
- Steve’s got a rant about Rogue Flickr. I’m not sure if they’re heading for destruction, but then again I’ve never had anything flagged. [steveo]
- Did you know FinderPop 2.2 [has been] released! I haven’t been on the beta list, so I didn’t even know Turly was still working on it. Nonetheless, well done, Sir! [turly]
It seems that our January Thaw this year is running a bit late. Made for some very nice days this weekend, in any case. Of course the problem with it getting above freezing this time of year is that at some point, it’s going to get colder again, and while that doesn’t seem to be due until later this week, there’s freezing rain happening not all that far from here. Careful on the roads, kiddies.
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| The full library |
In spite of the nice weather, I spent most of the weekend (and Friday, which I took off from work too) indoors. It’s nice out, but it’s not that nice out. Plus I need to get things buttoned down indoors before life gets busy in the summer. To that end, I worked on the library some. All the boxes of books are unpacked, except for one or two which are hiding behind other boxes in the basement, and most of the furniture is in place (I still need to find a day-bed or something I can use as a guest-bed, but that’s not going to be a critical issue until I have a guest). The room is pretty darned nice. A few more things on the walls, find and unpack the rest of the books, organize things a bit, and I’ll be ready to call it “done.”
And that’s got me thinking again about what my next project around the house will be. I had planned to completely re-do the bathroom, almost doubling it in size and adding cool new fixtures, but the expense on that might be more than I want to tackle at the moment. Maybe it would be best to just bide my time and work on smaller projects like getting the ground floor and basement of the house cleaned up and sorted out. That could be a nice lead-in to the garage sale I’ve been pondering for a few years now. I know I’ve got too much “stuff” and maybe it’s time to get rid of some of it so I don’t have to keep moving it from room to room as I tackle various projects.
But at the moment, the much more pressing business is getting all the tax stuff bundled up for the accountant, dropping that in the mail, and getting to work for the week. Which I guess I’ll get started on now. Have a great week!
- Mike at The Online Photographer has a great essay On Authoritarianism. There’s are many reasons I’ve been depressed by politics most of my adult life, but this is the biggie. Nearly my entire life I’ve watched the powers that be get more powerful and more intrusive. No sir, I don’t like it. [top]
- Forbes has an article on The Great College Hoax. It starts out looking like its questioning the actual value of college, but is mostly about the student loan business, and how that’s screwing students. [flutterby]
- Woo! Spinal Tap to return with new album, including the song Warmer than hell which they performed live in 2007. No word on who they’ve signed on as a drummer, yet. [metafilter]
Yeah, it’s winter. And yeah, it’s cold again (though that’s supposed to change tomorrow as we get some more melting). But surprisingly, I’ve been a little productive around home lately. Last weekend, I managed to clean almost all of the “stuff” out of my library, so it’s just got books, and furniture and the things that belong there. I still need to figure out where to store the extra shelves for the book-cases and unpack one particularly troublesome box of books, but it’s almost turned into a real room.
On the Roomba front, after seven consecutive days of successful cleaning missions, it seems to have gone into a slump. I’ve now had four days in which it failed to complete its rounds and make it home to its charging station. But the upstairs is significantly cleaner than it has been for years, and that’s largely due to the little robot that sometimes can. I was ready to buy one for the downstairs (in part because it would prompt me to pick up the clutter), but with the recent failures, I think I’ll be waiting a couple more weeks. I also want to research the battery life issue. Sounds like the batteries are only good for two years and cost $70 to replace. That seems a little steep, but I can probably live with it.
And that’s about it for now. There are signs of spring on the way, such as the Bud Shootout this weekend and pitchers and catchers reporting in ten days, but we’re still solidly in winter here in Minnesota, and that’s going to last for a while yet. I expect my updates will remain spotty, but I’ll try to do better than January’s three.
- Heh: Get Your Stinking-Cheap NRA Wine Right Here, Ladies and Gentlemen! A fine rant.
- As news of this Nikon Price Bump spreads, I’m pretty happy I bought my new Nikon glass during January, even if it was too cold for me to want to take it outside. Looks like if I’d waited until today, I’d be looking at an additional $500 in costs. [top]
- xkcd has a funny comic about Security. [endwar]
- These Heavy Metal Laundry Tips will help you keep your black T-shirts black. Excellent. [boing boing]
- Rob Cockerham reviewed Cash4Gold and then tells how Cash 4 Gold would like to melt down and recast their reputation. Nice work! [boing boing]