Today comes news that apparently on at least two occasions NASA sent a shuttle into orbit with a drunken astronaut onboard. I just find that to be unbelievable. There were a few occasions during my younger days when, after an evening of bar hopping, I drove home when I shouldn't have. I was lucky in that I never caused an accident or was nabbed by the police. But seeing how challenging it was just to drive a car, I can't imagine being in the same condition while taking the most complex space vehicle ever made into orbit. It certainly doesn't help NASA's image coming at a time when someone appears to have sabotaged a computer destined for the ISS, and this just a few months after another astronaut was arrested in Florida for just wanting to talk to a female competitor for another guy's affection (in this case the conversation would've included a knife, rubber tubing, a BB gun, pepper spray, and trash bags).
So I guess now the space shuttles will again have to be modified, this time with a breathalyzer that the astronauts will have to blow in before the shuttle will start up. Can you imagine the post-flight talk in the van that takes the astronauts away from the shuttle once it lands? "Oh man, we got so hammered this past weekend and we borrowed my dad's space shuttle. When I woke up the next morning everything was floating around and I was all like 'dude, what the f*$k?' and Chip blew chunks all over the remote arm control panel."
On a journey to the heart of darkness and futility.
Friday, July 27, 2007
The O-Type
One of those things you find online and just have to share. For what it's worth, a bathroom (public or private) is definitely not a place where I want to touch nature, nor look back and reconsider my life. Ewwwww!
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Ghost of a chance
For me there are few things better than a good ghost story. I love ‘em, which is one of the reasons I like Halloween and the abundance of television shows with tales of hauntings. I can remember being in the Boy Scouts thirty years ago and hearing tales from a few of my fellow members about their experiences in a nineteenth century house that was being used as a rectory for a church. It was summertime and they were moving some folding tables in the house. Suddenly they all experienced a cold breeze in the room they were working in, despite the windows being open allowing the warm air in.
The next summer our scout troop went hiking on the Appalachian Trail. Near our campsite was the foundation of a cabin that had long since been demolished. We were told that it had been a forest ranger cabin, and that one night while the ranger on duty lay asleep in his bed, someone shot and killed the ranger through the bedroom window. As a result there had been sightings of the dead ranger in the area of the ruins of the cabin. Our first night as we sat around the campfire telling stories, I noticed two blue orbs not too far away in the tree line. We initially thought they were glowworms, but when we shined our flashlights in the direction of the orbs, nothing was there: no orbs, no branches or trees for glowworms to set upon, absolutely nothing. We were all a bit unnerved by this turn of events. Was it the ghost of the ranger? I’ve no idea.
I can’t absolutely confirm it, but it’s been said that the building I work in is haunted. The building I work spent nearly the first sixty years of its existence as a dormitory, and I’ve read a story that a student once hung himself in the building. There are a lot of “urban” legends on campus so I don’t know if that really happened or not. But there have been times where I’ve found things in my office not exactly in the same place where I let them. In particular, there are four world maps in their cardboard tubing behind my office door. Normally they lean against the wall quite securely, but sometimes I arrive in the morning only to find the maps have fallen against the door—and not just against the door but in such a manner that they jam the door handle, making it much harder to get in to my office. And every time they fall over, they jam the handle in the same way. I’m thinking about leaving my camcorder in my office one night and see what it picks up (if anything).
It’s summertime, so times are lean for ghost story programming on television. But programs can be found to satisfy my ghost story habit. The Travel Channel is a virtual repository of shows featuring haunted destinations. The Sci Fi channel features one of my favorite ghost story shows, “Ghost Hunters.” Two guys in New England started up their own paranormal investigative service, working by day for Roto Rooter and by night and weekends as “ghostbusters.” They have a team that works for them, which makes their investigations easier, especially in larger buildings. Using video and audio equipment, as well as the individual teams, they go about their business checking out claims of ghosts and poltergeist activity. Most of the time the show consists of video of the teams wandering about shooting video, with not much to show for it. But from time to time they capture some really interesting video during their investigations. If you like ghost stories, check out the program some time.
A couple of nights ago I watched one of the funnier ghost hunter programs I’ve ever encountered. It was a two hour tour de farce called “Ghost Adventures” on the Sci Fi channel. Whereas the guys on Ghost Hunters use all sorts of electronic equipment during their investigations, the guys in Ghost Adventures had a couple of video cameras and a digital voice recorder at their disposal. The first part of the program found them in Virginia City, Nevada. In an old hotel there they managed to pick up an amazing video of a transparent figure walking through a room.
But during the second part of the program things got a bit silly. During the last hour they were investigating another old hotel. The story goes that a patron got a prostitute pregnant. After she carried the baby full term, the guy handcuffed the girl to a radiator, took the baby and threw it down a mine shaft found in the basement. The girl later died still handcuffed to the radiator. One hundred years later, enter the two guys of this crack investigative ghost hunting team. After wandering around the upper floors and not finding much, they head to the basement where the excitement begins. Almost immediately after they head down the steps they begin to hear various noises. Over the self-important narration provided by the head of this “team,” both of the guys admit to being freaked out by the noises. I guess in an attempt to make whatever, or whoever, was making the noises reveal themselves, the team leader starts making comments like, “You’re not a very nice spirit,” and “We’re not afraid of you!”
What happened next is an excellent example of being careful what you ask for as you just may get it. As they work their way around the basement trying to find where the noises are coming from, they enter the room where allegedly the baby was thrown down the mine shaft. In the glare of their flashlights and camcorder lights, these guys get their wish. Suddenly, a brick is picked up and thrown across the room by an unseen hand. As the team leader screams his first, “Holy shit!!!,” his partner takes off, leaving his friend behind. The video image becomes shaky and fuzzy as the leader runs like hell towards anywhere but there. A few minutes later he finds his friend who ditched him, and starts his camcorder again. As he pans around the section of the basement that they’ve run to, they hear the distinct sound of a woman’s pitiful cry (which is captured on the camcorder’s audio). Nobody else was in the building, as the front doors were padlocked. Again, both of the ghost hunters flee, this time to the first floor where they try to leave the building, only to find the padlock still on the front door. When one of the owners of the building comes the next morning to let the team out, she finds the building empty. Seems the guys went up to the second floor and jumped off a fire escape in order to get away from the building and presumably go find a change of underwear.
Not that I would’ve fared any better had I been in that basement and seen a brick fly across the room. But if you’re going to taunt a spirit, be prepared to face the consequences. Maybe I’ll set up my camcorder in my office and make some taunting comments before I leave for the day. If anything happens, I’ll let you know. And, fortunately, new underwear is fairly cheap.
The next summer our scout troop went hiking on the Appalachian Trail. Near our campsite was the foundation of a cabin that had long since been demolished. We were told that it had been a forest ranger cabin, and that one night while the ranger on duty lay asleep in his bed, someone shot and killed the ranger through the bedroom window. As a result there had been sightings of the dead ranger in the area of the ruins of the cabin. Our first night as we sat around the campfire telling stories, I noticed two blue orbs not too far away in the tree line. We initially thought they were glowworms, but when we shined our flashlights in the direction of the orbs, nothing was there: no orbs, no branches or trees for glowworms to set upon, absolutely nothing. We were all a bit unnerved by this turn of events. Was it the ghost of the ranger? I’ve no idea.
I can’t absolutely confirm it, but it’s been said that the building I work in is haunted. The building I work spent nearly the first sixty years of its existence as a dormitory, and I’ve read a story that a student once hung himself in the building. There are a lot of “urban” legends on campus so I don’t know if that really happened or not. But there have been times where I’ve found things in my office not exactly in the same place where I let them. In particular, there are four world maps in their cardboard tubing behind my office door. Normally they lean against the wall quite securely, but sometimes I arrive in the morning only to find the maps have fallen against the door—and not just against the door but in such a manner that they jam the door handle, making it much harder to get in to my office. And every time they fall over, they jam the handle in the same way. I’m thinking about leaving my camcorder in my office one night and see what it picks up (if anything).
It’s summertime, so times are lean for ghost story programming on television. But programs can be found to satisfy my ghost story habit. The Travel Channel is a virtual repository of shows featuring haunted destinations. The Sci Fi channel features one of my favorite ghost story shows, “Ghost Hunters.” Two guys in New England started up their own paranormal investigative service, working by day for Roto Rooter and by night and weekends as “ghostbusters.” They have a team that works for them, which makes their investigations easier, especially in larger buildings. Using video and audio equipment, as well as the individual teams, they go about their business checking out claims of ghosts and poltergeist activity. Most of the time the show consists of video of the teams wandering about shooting video, with not much to show for it. But from time to time they capture some really interesting video during their investigations. If you like ghost stories, check out the program some time.
A couple of nights ago I watched one of the funnier ghost hunter programs I’ve ever encountered. It was a two hour tour de farce called “Ghost Adventures” on the Sci Fi channel. Whereas the guys on Ghost Hunters use all sorts of electronic equipment during their investigations, the guys in Ghost Adventures had a couple of video cameras and a digital voice recorder at their disposal. The first part of the program found them in Virginia City, Nevada. In an old hotel there they managed to pick up an amazing video of a transparent figure walking through a room.
But during the second part of the program things got a bit silly. During the last hour they were investigating another old hotel. The story goes that a patron got a prostitute pregnant. After she carried the baby full term, the guy handcuffed the girl to a radiator, took the baby and threw it down a mine shaft found in the basement. The girl later died still handcuffed to the radiator. One hundred years later, enter the two guys of this crack investigative ghost hunting team. After wandering around the upper floors and not finding much, they head to the basement where the excitement begins. Almost immediately after they head down the steps they begin to hear various noises. Over the self-important narration provided by the head of this “team,” both of the guys admit to being freaked out by the noises. I guess in an attempt to make whatever, or whoever, was making the noises reveal themselves, the team leader starts making comments like, “You’re not a very nice spirit,” and “We’re not afraid of you!”
What happened next is an excellent example of being careful what you ask for as you just may get it. As they work their way around the basement trying to find where the noises are coming from, they enter the room where allegedly the baby was thrown down the mine shaft. In the glare of their flashlights and camcorder lights, these guys get their wish. Suddenly, a brick is picked up and thrown across the room by an unseen hand. As the team leader screams his first, “Holy shit!!!,” his partner takes off, leaving his friend behind. The video image becomes shaky and fuzzy as the leader runs like hell towards anywhere but there. A few minutes later he finds his friend who ditched him, and starts his camcorder again. As he pans around the section of the basement that they’ve run to, they hear the distinct sound of a woman’s pitiful cry (which is captured on the camcorder’s audio). Nobody else was in the building, as the front doors were padlocked. Again, both of the ghost hunters flee, this time to the first floor where they try to leave the building, only to find the padlock still on the front door. When one of the owners of the building comes the next morning to let the team out, she finds the building empty. Seems the guys went up to the second floor and jumped off a fire escape in order to get away from the building and presumably go find a change of underwear.
Not that I would’ve fared any better had I been in that basement and seen a brick fly across the room. But if you’re going to taunt a spirit, be prepared to face the consequences. Maybe I’ll set up my camcorder in my office and make some taunting comments before I leave for the day. If anything happens, I’ll let you know. And, fortunately, new underwear is fairly cheap.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Tune for a Tuesday
Most of my friends know that I play a bass guitar and I've played in bands in the past. Only a few of my friends have actually seen me play live. Almost none have heard any of the music recorded by the last band I played with ten years ago. Not only did I like playing the music we wrote, to this day I still enjoy listening to most of those songs (there are a few that make me cringe, more for my overplaying than anything else).
So I'm thinking I may post some of the songs from that band. Here's the first one. It's a song my friend Jon brought into our practice space less than a week after my father passed away. It's my favorite of the handful of songs we recorded in early December 1995. While Jon re-recorded this song for his CD back in 2001, this is the original version which I prefer. It's called Feet of Clay. Hope you like it.
So I'm thinking I may post some of the songs from that band. Here's the first one. It's a song my friend Jon brought into our practice space less than a week after my father passed away. It's my favorite of the handful of songs we recorded in early December 1995. While Jon re-recorded this song for his CD back in 2001, this is the original version which I prefer. It's called Feet of Clay. Hope you like it.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
WTF?
Announcing the Michael Vick Edition Dodge Nitro. Not for the easily offended, trust me on this one.
Friday, July 13, 2007
iBummed
Hello there, blog. Sorry I’ve been neglecting you of late. Didn’t really mean to, but things have just been busy of late. So let me catch you up on things.
My boss is back. He’s been off on a six month sabbatical and returned last week. Oddly enough, for most of the time he’s been away, I could see a healthy portion of the top of my desk. In the past few days he’s dropped so much of his work on my desk that I’m just now able to see small areas of wood grain. And now that he’s back it seems that whatever joy and happiness existed around here over the past half year has disappeared overnight. My boss is a nice guy, but it’s a bit of a pisser watching someone else get paid an exorbitant amount of money while others do his job.
On the plus side, though, I’m glad I got most of the planning for our spring course schedule out of the way before he came back. I’m sure most students think that departments arbitrarily create class schedules, but there is a rhyme and reason when creating them. We try to offer a certain number of classes, usually about four, in each area of concentration in our major. More often than not what our faculty want to teach is in line with what we need to offer in any given semester, but sometimes it’s a bitch trying to get folks to plug gaps in the schedule. In addition, we try to limit the number of basic introductory courses to just a handful each year. These courses are the gateway to everything else, and limiting them helps manage the demand on the upper level courses, which are already straining under the ever increasing number of majors (which has grown roughly 250% in the past few years) in our department. But I think between increasing support from further up the administrative food chain on campus, as well as me working directly with our advising office to create a schedule that meets demand as best as possible, we’re in good shape for the upcoming academic year…so long as nobody quits or my boss doesn’t start meddling with the schedules.
The Live Earth concerts for raising awareness of global warming were this past weekend. Like most folks, I didn’t watch them. Well, I should say I saw about 8 seconds of one of the concerts. Saw enough to catch the message that we should all change our lightbulbs to newer florescent ones. That’s what I’ve been doing at home the past month: spending a small fortune changing out all of our conventional bulbs for florescent ones. I’m wondering about the wisdom of these bulbs. Oh, sure, they’re supposed to save electricity over the long haul, but these bulbs contain mercury, which is not environmentally friendly. They work differently, taking half a second to actually come on and then about ten seconds to brighten up. The biggest difference is in the amount of heat the bulbs throw off. In our master bathroom the light fixture over the sink takes eight bulbs. There are darkened spots over the fixture where heat from the old bulbs had discolored the ceiling, and the bulbs would make the bathroom uncomfortable warm, especially during the summer. That’s not the case with the new florescent bulbs, and it makes getting ready for work in the morning easier as I’m not breaking into a sweat right after taking a shower. Down side to these bulbs is that they really highlight the increasing number of grey hairs on my head. Crap.
My boss is back. He’s been off on a six month sabbatical and returned last week. Oddly enough, for most of the time he’s been away, I could see a healthy portion of the top of my desk. In the past few days he’s dropped so much of his work on my desk that I’m just now able to see small areas of wood grain. And now that he’s back it seems that whatever joy and happiness existed around here over the past half year has disappeared overnight. My boss is a nice guy, but it’s a bit of a pisser watching someone else get paid an exorbitant amount of money while others do his job.
On the plus side, though, I’m glad I got most of the planning for our spring course schedule out of the way before he came back. I’m sure most students think that departments arbitrarily create class schedules, but there is a rhyme and reason when creating them. We try to offer a certain number of classes, usually about four, in each area of concentration in our major. More often than not what our faculty want to teach is in line with what we need to offer in any given semester, but sometimes it’s a bitch trying to get folks to plug gaps in the schedule. In addition, we try to limit the number of basic introductory courses to just a handful each year. These courses are the gateway to everything else, and limiting them helps manage the demand on the upper level courses, which are already straining under the ever increasing number of majors (which has grown roughly 250% in the past few years) in our department. But I think between increasing support from further up the administrative food chain on campus, as well as me working directly with our advising office to create a schedule that meets demand as best as possible, we’re in good shape for the upcoming academic year…so long as nobody quits or my boss doesn’t start meddling with the schedules.
The Live Earth concerts for raising awareness of global warming were this past weekend. Like most folks, I didn’t watch them. Well, I should say I saw about 8 seconds of one of the concerts. Saw enough to catch the message that we should all change our lightbulbs to newer florescent ones. That’s what I’ve been doing at home the past month: spending a small fortune changing out all of our conventional bulbs for florescent ones. I’m wondering about the wisdom of these bulbs. Oh, sure, they’re supposed to save electricity over the long haul, but these bulbs contain mercury, which is not environmentally friendly. They work differently, taking half a second to actually come on and then about ten seconds to brighten up. The biggest difference is in the amount of heat the bulbs throw off. In our master bathroom the light fixture over the sink takes eight bulbs. There are darkened spots over the fixture where heat from the old bulbs had discolored the ceiling, and the bulbs would make the bathroom uncomfortable warm, especially during the summer. That’s not the case with the new florescent bulbs, and it makes getting ready for work in the morning easier as I’m not breaking into a sweat right after taking a shower. Down side to these bulbs is that they really highlight the increasing number of grey hairs on my head. Crap.
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