Wow, it's been a LONG time since I put anything up here. I hate to disappoint my reader like that, sorry guy!
If you're one of my fleshbag friends, you know that I've been VERY busy lately. My new position as Primary Care Giver (PCG) to The Peanut during the day has kept me very busy while taking 13 hours at 3 different schools in order to get my PBTL so that I can student teach in the fall (hopefully under contract, fingers crossed!) and also fulfililng my fieldwork requirements (55 hours, total). Let's just say that it's been a little hectic. None of this is helped by my natural tendency towards procrastination, let me tell you.
Otherwise, things are really going well, Ulli is in good shape and is hauling me and The Peanut around with nary a complaint besides a burned out driving light bulb. We've covered a LOT of miles since Nov 1, how many, I'm not exactly sure, but somewhere in the neighborhood of 3k-4k. He is definitley proving his worth as the Familienwagen.
That's all for now, back to NCIS marathon and decompressing before tomorrow's full day in a 9th grade classroom.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Pausing for Breath
Sorry for the long pause, still working on a post about my new situation. In the meantime, saw this today on Defective Yeti and almost wet myself laughing. That Matthew Baldwin is one funny f--ker.
Fed Cuts Rates on Money, Chicks
Fed Cuts Rates on Money, Chicks
The Federal Reserve today cut a key interest rate to zero, allowing borrowers to get money for nothing. In a related move, the Fed also set the short-term lending rate of chicks to free.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the adjustments were necessary to avoid a deflationary spiral and to prevent the acquisitions of blisters on little fingers and thumbs. "We're confident that yo-yos, millionaires, and little faggots alike will respond favorably to this unprecedented action," said the visibly stressed and unhappy Bernanke, who in recent weeks has complained of "Hawaiian noises" and privately lamented that he did not learn to play the guitar or drums rather than study economics.
Retailers in dire straits welcomed the news, having felt the sting of low consumer confidence. "Hopefully this will allow us to sell our backlog," said Mark Knopfler of Brothers in Arms Appliance. "We gotta move these refrigerators. We gotta move these color TVs."
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Retro-Awesome
I love this Maker-style bluetooth handset for mobile phones. The main problem I have with current hands-free devices is the same I have with the phones themselves: I feel like the mic is so far from my mouth that I have to shout. This solves that problem, adds some retro-geek-chic and some comforting real-life familiarity to the situation. Add a shoulder crutch or maybe one of those floor-trader harnesses, and you're hands-free!
Bluetooth Handset Hack, via MightyOhm
Bluetooth Handset Hack, via MightyOhm
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Sunday, November 2, 2008
The King is Dead, Long Live The Kaiser!
Big changes here at Nut Industries World Headquarters. A series of events occurred over the last week or so that enabled the Nuts to make some major changes in the transport fleet over the weekend. The first thing that happened is that a 1999 Mercedes Benz E320 Touring w/4Matic showed up on the website of Mid Atlantic Motorwerkes, in Harrisonburg, VA. MAM is owned and operated by a bunch of serious gear heads with a serious Euro-Iron addiction. Greg Schafer is the primary guy over at MAM and I know him from my days at CDOC, when his vinyl graphics company (Victory By Design) did a lot of work for us and for many of our partners, and he and his brother have opened a high-line pre-owned European dealership in Harrisonburg and, by all accounts and appearences, are doing very well at it. Their primary specialty is BMW, but they also deal in Audi, Mercedes Benz and Porsche. Occasionally they'll have a Lexus or Jaguar on their site, but mostly it's German iron. Greg's a Bimmer man, and races an E36 325 in BMWCCA racing. He's currently leading the championship, with one round to go, at Barber Motorsports Park. Needless to say, they know what they're doing when it comes to high-line German imports, so when this 10-year old Benz war/party wagon showed up on their website, it seemed like a decent option for a family car for the Nuts.
In case you're the reader that doesn't know me personally and know my current fleet situation, the Nuts have a total of 4 vehicles, a 2008 Subaru Outback (a silver station wagon with awd) which is Mrs Nut's car and was purchased pretty much specifically so that we had a safe and reliable Peanut carrier; a 2001 Ford Ranger pickup, which has been my primary car since I got it in 2005; my 1999 Suzuki SV650 motorcycle; and the Ghetto King Kamry, a 1992 Toyota Camry. Needless to say, only one of these vehicles is even remotely appropriate for transporting the Peanut (the Subie). The Truck is useful, but we're not using it much, if at all, it's winter-ish out, so the motorcycle isn't getting much use and the GKK is nice, gas-mileage wise, but that's all it's nice for. We had discussed our options for replacing the truck, since it's now paid off, and while there are cars out there that might be ok (Honda Civic, VW Jetta TDI, etc), they're trading at a high premium on account of the high gas prices, so we had pretty much resigned ourselves to living with the car options we have currently and selling the Truck to put the money away and use it to fix up the GKK.
Then, early last week, like a bolt of lightning, the Benz struck. I've been talking to another one of my co-workers that's thinking about upgrading his BMW from an E46 3-series to an E60 M5 and I was looking at MAM's website when I saw the Benz wagon. I decided to email Greg and see if we could strike a deal of some kind, which we did, and made plans to go see the car and test drive it on Saturday. Mrs. Nut and I went out to Harrisonburg and checked it out, signed the papers, and drove 'er home! She's no Hammer, but she's quite the Teutonic powerhouse. I was concerned that the weight of the wagon combined with the 4matic awd system would drag 'er down, but she cruises quite handily on the highway or the backroads. She's not perfect, needs brakes (warped rotor) and better tires (loud, cheap ones), a new motor for the driver's seat headrest and a few little things here and there, but for the price and for the void it filled, it really works for us. Additionally, it's got a "Way Back" seat, a jump seat that flips up out of the cargo area and has shoulder belts and cup holders, so this thing seats 7 adults. First things first, however, gotta make the stereo swap. The Benz came with the factory stereo installed, with phone and CD changer, but unfortunately the phone requires a service plan and the fiber optic circuit that connects the changer seems to be interrupted somewhere (a common problem with the W210, I've read), so I've gotta put the Sony iPod control/CD deck in that Mrs Nut got for me last Xmas (it's been in the Truck and the GKK, EvoMan is getting tired of soldering the wiring harness!). After that it's brakes and then eventually tires!
Update:EvoMan got the wiring harness soldered up, and we got the head unit installed with the iPod cable coming out in the armrest console. WOOT!
Update 2: Sold the GKK to the family across the street (Kevin #4, father of The Boy Who Mows), so the Nut Fleet is up to 66% Peanut-friendly transportation!
Update 3: yes, we are now a family of two silver station wagons. We're officially old.
In case you're the reader that doesn't know me personally and know my current fleet situation, the Nuts have a total of 4 vehicles, a 2008 Subaru Outback (a silver station wagon with awd) which is Mrs Nut's car and was purchased pretty much specifically so that we had a safe and reliable Peanut carrier; a 2001 Ford Ranger pickup, which has been my primary car since I got it in 2005; my 1999 Suzuki SV650 motorcycle; and the Ghetto King Kamry, a 1992 Toyota Camry. Needless to say, only one of these vehicles is even remotely appropriate for transporting the Peanut (the Subie). The Truck is useful, but we're not using it much, if at all, it's winter-ish out, so the motorcycle isn't getting much use and the GKK is nice, gas-mileage wise, but that's all it's nice for. We had discussed our options for replacing the truck, since it's now paid off, and while there are cars out there that might be ok (Honda Civic, VW Jetta TDI, etc), they're trading at a high premium on account of the high gas prices, so we had pretty much resigned ourselves to living with the car options we have currently and selling the Truck to put the money away and use it to fix up the GKK.
Then, early last week, like a bolt of lightning, the Benz struck. I've been talking to another one of my co-workers that's thinking about upgrading his BMW from an E46 3-series to an E60 M5 and I was looking at MAM's website when I saw the Benz wagon. I decided to email Greg and see if we could strike a deal of some kind, which we did, and made plans to go see the car and test drive it on Saturday. Mrs. Nut and I went out to Harrisonburg and checked it out, signed the papers, and drove 'er home! She's no Hammer, but she's quite the Teutonic powerhouse. I was concerned that the weight of the wagon combined with the 4matic awd system would drag 'er down, but she cruises quite handily on the highway or the backroads. She's not perfect, needs brakes (warped rotor) and better tires (loud, cheap ones), a new motor for the driver's seat headrest and a few little things here and there, but for the price and for the void it filled, it really works for us. Additionally, it's got a "Way Back" seat, a jump seat that flips up out of the cargo area and has shoulder belts and cup holders, so this thing seats 7 adults. First things first, however, gotta make the stereo swap. The Benz came with the factory stereo installed, with phone and CD changer, but unfortunately the phone requires a service plan and the fiber optic circuit that connects the changer seems to be interrupted somewhere (a common problem with the W210, I've read), so I've gotta put the Sony iPod control/CD deck in that Mrs Nut got for me last Xmas (it's been in the Truck and the GKK, EvoMan is getting tired of soldering the wiring harness!). After that it's brakes and then eventually tires!
Update:EvoMan got the wiring harness soldered up, and we got the head unit installed with the iPod cable coming out in the armrest console. WOOT!
Update 2: Sold the GKK to the family across the street (Kevin #4, father of The Boy Who Mows), so the Nut Fleet is up to 66% Peanut-friendly transportation!
Update 3: yes, we are now a family of two silver station wagons. We're officially old.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Scraping the Tubes
A couple of interesting things found on Boing Boing this week:
Why The Republicans Must Lose, from Reason, a discussion of how the GOP has changed from its original "Limited Government" message and how a defeat in the upcoming election could help right the ship, so to speak.
Brain Surgery and the Banjo Player. Eddie Adcock, a legendary figure in bluegrass banjo, had developed a right-hand tremor which began to affect his playing, so he went to Vanderbilt University and had them do some deep brain stimulation and implant electrodes in his brain. While he was awake. While he played the banjo and directed them where to go. Crazy stuff.
More Nanny State Ninnery. Cory Doctrow, a Canadian living in the UK with his UK-native wife, has been documenting the absolutely Orwellian levels to which the UK's various attempts to fight "terrorism" are beginning to affect its citizenry.
Not found on Boing Boing directly, but via a few clicks, Bruce Schneier has been taking the TSA to task over its progrom of harrassment of innocent travellers that does nothing to deter truly motivated and intelligent terrorists from gaining access to our transportation grid. His blog has all kinds of good things on it, but this story, from the Atlantic was especially interesting in that it showed just how porous airport "security" actually is and how much of a charade it is.
Boing Boing is a very interesting place to keep up on all kinds of things, and while we're on different sides of the political spectrum, I truly enjoy reading probably close to 90% of what they choose to post.
All links courtesy of Boing Boing.
Why The Republicans Must Lose, from Reason, a discussion of how the GOP has changed from its original "Limited Government" message and how a defeat in the upcoming election could help right the ship, so to speak.
Brain Surgery and the Banjo Player. Eddie Adcock, a legendary figure in bluegrass banjo, had developed a right-hand tremor which began to affect his playing, so he went to Vanderbilt University and had them do some deep brain stimulation and implant electrodes in his brain. While he was awake. While he played the banjo and directed them where to go. Crazy stuff.
More Nanny State Ninnery. Cory Doctrow, a Canadian living in the UK with his UK-native wife, has been documenting the absolutely Orwellian levels to which the UK's various attempts to fight "terrorism" are beginning to affect its citizenry.
Not found on Boing Boing directly, but via a few clicks, Bruce Schneier has been taking the TSA to task over its progrom of harrassment of innocent travellers that does nothing to deter truly motivated and intelligent terrorists from gaining access to our transportation grid. His blog has all kinds of good things on it, but this story, from the Atlantic was especially interesting in that it showed just how porous airport "security" actually is and how much of a charade it is.
Boing Boing is a very interesting place to keep up on all kinds of things, and while we're on different sides of the political spectrum, I truly enjoy reading probably close to 90% of what they choose to post.
All links courtesy of Boing Boing.
A New Name in the Cloud
My good friend, Phocion's Progeny, has started a blog to discuss this, that and that other thing, and I invite you, my reader, to check it out. Heroes of the Republic aims to be a gathering place where those of us lean to the right can gather to discuss what's on our minds in these uncertain times and promises to be a thought-provoking exercise for all involved. If your flag flies in that direction, I encourage you to stop by and leave him a note and check in occasionally to take part in the dialogue.
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