Hadn't felt much like doing this blog thing for awhile.  Wasn't sure it really interested me.  Then the main computer at the house started acting up, and the access to the blog wasn't setup on my laptop (which I couldn't be bothered to deal with).  One thing after another as they say....

But it's the Christmas break, the weather is crappy and I don't have much better to do.  This will be some major rambling - though I'm still not into all those imbedded links and images thing.  That may come later. 

Crap

A friend of mine was killed the other day.  His name was Jerry McEwen.  He tried to stop a drug-addicted, out on parole, douche bag from snatching a lady's purse.  The douche bag stabbed Jerry in the chest.   Luckily for the douche bag, the cops caught up with him and his douche bag wife before I got really worked up about this.  I hope the rot in hell.  This all happened in Nashville. 

I knew Jerry from windsurfing.  He was a stand-up kind of guy who ran is own web design business.  He had a cool blog.  He posted frequently in rec.windsurfing.  He did not deserve to die because some selfish bastard needed a fix. 

Did I mention rotting in hell?

I may post more information about this as I get over it.  But I'm getting worked about typing about it. 

Crap II

So I make beer.  And if you're a beer drinker, you know that prices have been going up because the cost of beer ingredients are going up.  Barley has gone up $20 a 50lb bag since I last bought it this Spring (from $45 to $65).  Hops (when you can find them) have gone from about $0.99/oz to $3.00$-3.50/oz.  This is making homebrew fairly expensive.  Why has this happened?  Because the douche bags in our federal government are on a big "save the environment" push.  A big part of that push is about ethanol production.  So the land that formerly was used for hops and barley has been turned into corn production.  The hop issue is further complicated by a couple of really crappy harvests in Europe.  Luckily, I had enough hops laying around to make the batch of beer I want to brew up this coming weekend.

Back to the ethanol thing...  The corn growing industry in this country has some very good lobbyists.  Good enough that the production of corn and ethanol from corn is heavily subsidized - with my flipping tax dollars.  The problem here is that ethanol is stupid.  Why?

• Because ethanol has less energy content than gas, so mileage drops.
• Because ethanol from corn use more energy to produce than it puts back into the system.
• Because ethanol absorbs water faster than Texas soil, which puts water into the fuel system and causes all kind of problems in older cars.
• Because the ethanol crowd wants gasoline in the US to have 20% ethanol even though the majority of cars in the US can barely handle 10% ethanol.
• Because ethanol made from corn requires usage of fertilizers, with the direct result of an increased dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico.
• Because ethanol made from corn results in higher food prices for the consumer, and more expensive beer.

Ethanol may be a good idea, but this country needs to take it's lead from a country that's doing it right.  Because here in the USA, we're just fucking it up even worse. 

Sheesh....

Crap III

So I mentioned earlier about my house computer being on the fritz...  Well that's not totally true.  It still works, except for trying to access the internet.  I've managed to corrupt the TCP/IP drivers on the machine - how?  I left it on overnight and it didn't work the next day.  A typical "feature" of Microsoft OS.  But then I probably had it coming.  You see, when I built this machine back in 2002, I sorta hacked XP Pro...  I say "sorta" because a friend gave me a copy of an 8-in-1 disk which I used to get the machine running.  I always planned to get things done right, but you know what they say...  If it ain't broke. 

But a five year old machine is old.  Something like 100 years in people age.  I really out to replace it.  But this Windows Vista crap is still in it's infancy.  Should I build a new machine?  Should I buy one?  Should I keep using this 7 year old laptop with a dead screen and no battery?

Crap....

Not Crap

So the wife and I have a nice trip down to the Texas coast for the Thanksgiving holiday.  It's an annual thing - I forget for sure how long I've been going.  It's gotta be 15+ years by now.  These days, we call it Bird @ Bird because we stay at Bird Island Basin in the Padre Island National Seashore.  This was not as huge an event as years past, but we had quite a few of the usual suspects from the last few years - along with the return of one of the old timers who'd instead been terrorizing Puerto Rico for a few years.

The wife and I left Dallas after work on the Friday before Thanksgiving.  We stopped south of San Antonio to spend the night, then drove in the rest of the way on Saturday morning.  We stopped at the new HEB plus in Flower Bluff (holy crap that thing is huge!) to load up on groceries and ice.  Then we headed down island.  We rolled into Bird about noon on Saturday.  The truck and trailer probably weighed over 16,000 lbs combined. 

We sailed.  We ate.  We drank.  We burned stuff.  We had a good time. 

I managed to do about 156 miles of windsurfing during the week down there.  .  My big day was Wednesday before Turkey Day.  I had an 82 mile day on the Mistral Classic 276 with an Ezzy Infinity 6.5.  It felt like I ruled the water that day. 

The weather started getting crap late Wednesday.  We left on Saturday. 

Not Crap II

It's been a decent year at Mariner.  Not great, but OK.  Business could have been better - but that 3 months of rain thing, followed closely by 3 months of lakes too full to be on has to be understood.  I'll probably keep working there for the forseeable future.  Mostly because I can get away with so much - though the commute can be a killer.

Lynne's still cranking away at BCD.  She should make full professor sometime in 2008 - the higher ups at Baylor would have to be total idiots to not do it.  I suspect we won't be long for the Dallas area if she doesn't make it. 

Max, my Golden Retriever, is still with me.  He's over 14 now.  A bit stiff in the hips, but fiesty as ever.  Lance is still with us.  Hank still terrorizes the birds.  And Spock, our new pavement special, 8 month old black cat, thinks he runs the place. 


That's it for now.