The Dog House Ramblings

Been Awhile

The Dog — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 22:03:00 GMT

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.

SPAM SPAM SPAM

The Dog — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 19:02:00 GMT

What the hell is it with SPAM? Who the hell falls for these bullshit pitches? There must be a ton of really stupid people out there.... I mean besides the SPAMMERS. Otherwise these morons would have given up a long time ago.

And even though I've never used my current email address in any public forum, guestbook or news group, I'm getting 20+ SPAMS a day.

SPAMMERS are a waste of life.

Dog

Buyer Beware...

The Dog — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 02:34:00 GMT

Because I write about windsurfing in this blog, ads for windsurfing gear pop-up across the header from time to time. I saw tonite that Windsurfing-Direct had an advertisement on my page.

You're better off taking up jet-skiing then buying windsurfing gear from those morons.

How do I know this? Because I work in a windsurfing/kayak/Hobie shop. And I've had the unfortunate duty of explaining to people who bought from Windsurfing-Direct that the gear they bought is not suitable for what they want to do. I sometimes think the Windsurfing-Direct guys do it on purpose because they know that their unhappy customers will make life miserable for the local shops.

So if you want to get into windsurfing, ask before you buy. If you're close-by, I'll take good care of you. If you're in a distant city, I'll hook you up with a reputable shop.

But if you like shopping at Walmart and eating Big Macs, by all means, shop with Windsurfing-Direct. You're probably a dumbass anyway.

Dog

What is it with you pussy liberals and anti-gunners?

The Dog — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 02:24:00 GMT

So we have a terrible tragedy at a university in the US. A psycho who should have probably been under observation gets hold of a couple of handguns and shoots the school up.

And somehow that's my fault.

Yep. A bunch of the ass monkey liberal pussies who frequent rec dot windsurfing start giving me a hard time because I'm a gun owner. One in particular, who's a clueless newbie schlepping a line of crap sails, decides that I'm being defensive, sends me nasty email, then accuses me of hypocrisy.

F.F... You are an ass monkey. Pure and simple. And you're a coward. Go back to where ever it was your ass monkey ass was born.

So in what is probably a waste-of-time attempt at educating the perpetual delusional, more laws will not keep criminals from respecting the laws they just broke.

Oh... And did I mention that those morons at Delta Airlines have still not paid my wife for her lost luggage? What a bunch of crooks.

Dog

Rant & Rave

The Dog — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 17:45:00 GMT

What is it with smokers who think the whole world is their personal ashtray? Like the lady on I-635 westbound driving the Red Honda (TX 696-pwp) who flipped her butt out of her sunroof. Or the people who empty their ashtrays in the parking lot here at work.

What a bunch of ass monkeys.

School bus drivers... A whole other group of ass monkeys. A couple of Richardson ISD's finest were doing the left lane bandit maneuver this morning. They had traffic stacked up badly, so people were getting impatient. That certainly creates a "safe" environment. Of course, the 2nd driver was tailgating the 1st one (who was doing 50mph on clear roads), so they obviously weren't rocket scientists. And this is only a couple of days after watching a Garland ISD driver scrape some paint off of his bus... with a railroad crossing arm that was in motion.

Ass Monkeys!

And don't even get me started on those ass monkeys over at DHL. Those people can't deliver a package without having jumped up and down on it... Or worse. Just say no to DHL.

In a not so much Rant mode, the local aircraft museum (Frontiers of Flight) have been hosting a display of flying WW2 bombers this week. The birds are static during the middle of the day, but fly in the morning and afternoon. And for the right amount of change, they'll take joy riders. I've been watching these things fly over the shop and house for a week now. Lucky Bastards.

Dog

I am a lardass....

The Dog — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 23:49:00 GMT

I came to this realization today after getting worn out way too quickly while windsurfing. Instead of sailing, I've been sitting on my butt for the last three months. So when I went out in some nice 15-25mph winds today, all I could manage was a 20 mile session. And instead of pushing around my 6.5 m2 sail like I normally do, it pushed me around.

This just will not do.

Six months ago I was a trim and fit 175-180 lbs. Now I'm pushing 200 again.

This just will not do.

But at least I sailed. And I sailed in the last days of winter. So while I totally missed getting out in January and February (which is quite unusual for me), I can at least say that I've sailed every season...

Yeah, I know... Lame.

And Delta Airlines still sucks.

Dog

Delta Airlines STILL SUCKS

The Dog — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 02:00:00 GMT

So it's over two weeks and the wife's bag is still missing. They've sent her the forms to fill out to get reimbursed, but it sounds like that's an iffy proposition at best. Once Delta gets the paperwork, they claim it will take 12-16 weeks to cut a check....

I'm thinking small claims court. Maybe a new claim once a week for.... oh, 12 to 16 weeks.

Ass monkeys.

In other news, I've finally started brewing beer again. I bought myself a nice March magnetic drive pump for my birthday last year. I finally got a mount built, the wiring done and plumbing set up so that I could brew last Monday. I'm going to call this Pump 1.0, cause there's going to be some changes. First, I need to improve the connection scheme. I'm getting hot water and sparge everywhere when I switch hoses. And I need to increase the diameter of the drain tubes in both the mash tun and wort kettle.

But as a famous person wrote, Don't worry.... Have a homebrew.

Speaking of ass monkeys, I finally gave up on the surgical crew down at Baylor College of Dentistry. I've now got a real periodontist who is going to fix the hole in my gum line that's left over from last Feb's maxofacial surgery.

I like the new Daylight Savings Time scheme.

We need rain, and I need some windsurfing.

That's it.

Dog

Delta Airlines Sucks

The Dog — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 20:54:00 GMT

Delta Airlines SUCKS!

Yeah, that's no surprise to most of you. And should be a foregone conclusion since Delta is in bankruptcy. But sometimes you just have to have a reminder. And my wife got a big reminder in February.

We recently traveled to visit her parents in South Africa. Instead of using South African Airways, she booked us with Delta because it was "cheaper". The old saying, "You get what you pay for" applies.

Crap aircraft, problematic systems, long waits, the usual poor customer service that has become all too standard in the USA airline industry....

And as punishment for her sins, Delta lost my wife's bag. And they lost it on the leg from Atlanta to Dallas, because we had it in Atlanta when we cleared customs.

Thanks for nothing, Delta... You f***ing prats!

Dog

Spammers SUCK

The Dog — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:28:00 GMT

I don't get a lot of SPAM at home, but I get tons at the office. And these losers are constantly changing their methods in an attempt to get past the current filters. Their latest ploy is pulling the current news headlines and using them for the subject lines. It makes scanning the bit bucket that much more work.

What a bunch of ass monkeys.

Dog

Crazy, crazy sailing in December

The Dog — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 20:45:00 GMT

So here it was... December 16th. Six days from the official start of winter... And what was I doing?

Windsurfing!

I also took some time to go play with the shop's Hobie Adventure Island. This is a small trimaran based on the Hobie Adventure kayak. And it's a cool toy. It's not nearly as fast as a windsurfer, but it was a hoot out in the swell that day.

And if that's not enough, I got to do it all over again on December 17th. Good stuff.

Dog

And In The Beginning...

The Dog — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 18:50:00 GMT

There was blog...

No... wait... Wrong book.

So I've knuckled under and started a blog hosted at The Dog House. It's called the Ramblings because that was the title of a newsletter column I used to write for the local windsurfing club. I will probably not have any firm structure, goals or regular posting schedule. I imagine things will pop up here when either the muse hits or steam needs venting.

Sorry about the ads across the top of the page. Even though I own the domain, GoDaddy charges extra for a "no-ads" blog tool. Seems pretty stupid, but that's the deal. Maybe I'll just make a point of mocking any of the advertisers that get attached to this blog. Who knows... But it will all sort out.

Until then,

Dog