coughing on my end

I was on the phone and the resident smoke of three cigarettes, not to mention the stink on the phone got me to cough and hack while on the phone. Though smokers apologized for the inconvenience ... it is rude. Tip: if you're asthmatic, don't work where I do.

Hot music

Radio station sign ... melted. Apparently the lights shorted and the sign for the Rock station completely melted the sign. Wow! They do mean hot, don't they?

What?

Turn up my headphones!

I asked one person how they were doing and got basically, "Goony goowho". What? The second thing the person said was understandable English, not the first. That person works where I work. It was strange.

A couple of other people have a bugger of a time hearing with the ambient noise and dull, incessant hum of work, harsh white noise that dulls the ears. I have to stand nearly lips to ears to one person who has a tough time hearing. You'd never imagine how much noise is there. It isn't loud, per se, but constant. I'd say maybe a 15 dB or so constant level + or - 6 dB.

The other thing at work was to quickly make an order when you hear ... "askdfjo tah -- now!" Huh? I should have taken Klingon in college.

I dared, I lost

I dared to scan more of some material so that I could better organize it and reformat it. I know that there is a peek limit where my machine gets flakey. I thought I could push the limit. In this case, my laptop didn't present the issue ... my scanning did. The material didn't sit flat, so ... there are EKG readings where there should be text. In all ... I got 12% of what I wanted ... the rest, wasted. I knew I should have stepped lightly, but no .... I had to be bold and impetuous.

I wasted 30 minutes on it. I quit and will start again some other time. Thankfully it is not critical.

iAviso!

I read a blurb that Vista isn't going to offer Outlook. One user noted that it was like the 98 to 2000 Windows update. Wow ... look, with new "shinier" (TM) technology. While using Vista, it will do a courtesy check to make sure you have an authentic install of it. This will be conducted every 2 minutes while you work. With new features such as useless animations and roating windows.

Windows uses the Loren Michaels philosophy; if they laugh once at the joke, it will be especially funny twenty times in a row. Don't make a product better ... just make more, more, more! More plugins that you can buy! More codex that aren't installed! More settings to fine tune! Help now even more useless! That's right! With Vista you get more!

you got2

I had a "conversation" with a person on the phone. What I wanted to say was, "You got to learn to speak English". They weren't speaking a true foreign tongue, but rather urban ... "you got ... hav dat ... sum" almost like Lil' Jon calling in. I don't speak friggity diggity urban!

Better still, having three people and no ideas. "Whadoyouallwan ... hol' on ... yeah. Whatyougo ... hol' up . .. wha?"

So ... is there a human there who can take over the conversation please?

February Winter morning

February Winter morning
Originally uploaded by MDH, II.

Local schools were delayed and some cancelled. It might have been the right choice. The kids, if they awoke, got to see this bright, lovely scene.

AIDS and a cure claim

As covered on MSNBC, Gambia's president claimed to have an AIDS cure. While the call to stop other treatments is dangerous, two other requirements make sense. Since some of the country is Muslim, he calls that patients stop drinking alcohol -- huh, go figure. He also requests that they stop having sex. Now that there is a good idea. Since much of Africa's continent is populated with people resistant to prophylactic use, abstinence makes sense.

That's kinda of like a third-degree burn patient with necrotic tissue on the hands suggested not to be the sous chef or barbecue expert. That's pretty sound advice.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reminded people that there is NO CURE FOR AIDS. Since better financed countries have been working on any cure for more than ten years, it seems unlikely, to say the least, that topical pastes and bitter drinks can cure AIDS. It seems to me that the "medicine" also didn't need refrigeration.

multiple ... positions ...

ahahahahahahahahahaha! You so crazy!

Are you sure that you read this ad before you sent it?

Maniac?
(S) He's a maniac, maniac on the floor.

Over the snow ledge

snow ledge
Originally uploaded by MDH, II.

There's more snow. It's not as scary when you stand. This is 3" stand of packed wet snow.

by viewers unlike me

So, the trend that I see in my limited TV watching is: shock and repel. Let's take the Snicker's commercial. It's shock and repel. It was stupid and then topped itself with homosexuality. Okay, how many times has your heterosexual friend leaned over to eat something dangling out of your mouth ... [wait for it] ... NEVER. The Geico commercials are fair and balanced with stupidity between two reckless and pounded ideas: speaking gecko and caveman. The caveman at the airport or any other such nonsense ... SCHTUPID! If they can save you that much money, how do they afford the commercials?

I'm waiting, for I know it'll be soon, that some commercial will have animals humping in the background, unrelated to the product or service. This will be memorable and will be aired over and over again. The SUV and truck commercials tout environment and mileage while driving over rugged mountains tearing through agave plants. There's a Nissan commercial with a couple who speed through town, because of the woman's question, "Do you think we'll make it".

Commercial pastureland, in a manner of speaking, if it looks, smells, and acts like manure -- it probably is. Of course, the TV shows are pretty fairly manure too, so they go together like a soap opera marriage -- infidelity rampant.

Tread?

Names for businesses:

Tire shops:
Tread on thee
Where Tire Meets Road
Wheeled Around
Mounted, Inflated, Balanced (MIB)

Meats:
Pieces of Ewe
Bakin' Bits
It's the Thighs That Count

Fresh Market Vegetables:
Something Ewe Can Chew On

un-country boy

Bob Denver's, "Thank God, I'm a Country Boy" was on the radio ... on one of the five area-available channels. Yep ... I'm dislocated, like a football player's shoulder. I hurt, aching and silenced after time heals. I'm not a country boy. I've wearied of rap and don't really want to revist the 60s and 70s for the next ten years. It's interesting that one guy was called to go to what he called, "BFE", which is close to the feeling of remoteness of this town. It's strange that it has the features of a larger town, yet Mayberry in other ways.

I'm waiting to hear a hurried, high-pitched man's chant to, "Nip it in the bud."

offer

It isn't a long drive to work, but I have two days that end and start within ten hours of each other. My question was, "does it make sense to get a hotel room up there". I asked around to find out what hotel was fair priced and okay. A woman I asked first didn't know, but unflirtatiously offered her place. I felt odd, so I said I'd think about it. Well, I just don't think it's a good idea, so ... I can drive there, back and there again for my follow up day is shorter.

"You here a short while and we're family", said a different southern-belle woman, naturally calling for me to, "Smile ... laugh, do something." I'm a bit tense at work, as I'm just not fast. When I try to be fast, I'm sloppy. It's funny to see the veterans (of the company) there doing the job like hacky-sack -- mindlessly doing it with finesse and jovial conversation. I'm still thinking ... step A, step B, step C, step D ... read specifications ... step E. At the end of the night, I feel dull, not sharp, stupider, not smarter, weary, not invigorated. It is a different monster altogether than teaching.

Back to the offer, I'll have to decline and then drive all that time. The other side comment she made was, she'd like the company, her roommate moved out. Huh. It means nothing, but is unsettling in my mind. My back is starched and I'm thinking to remember or remembering to think.

Winter rose

Winter rose
Originally uploaded by MDH, II.

It was definitely feeling thorny all Winter long ... that's why it will grow so well in spring and summer, where everyone can see it bloom

Plan G (partially built)

Since I have troops in and around Iraq, to win in the light of seeming defeat, I would publicly announce the bounty on insurgents: $10,000 to $200,000 per person, relatively comparable finder's fee for weapons cache's, followed by public stonings and beheadings, and subsurface burial, so that each person may walk over the face of the dead, of any persons involved in retribution acts against informants. After that, you could use an ancient Egyptian technique of obliterating records of that person's very existence. So, in essence you make the penalty for violence sickening enough that you choose to follow.

Because the US represents a foreign force in all respects, it is critical to make the efforts a community effort and not just the US troops hunting down and killing insurgents. With this community spirit of finding, condemning and terminating/expunging insurgents and radical forces, the community will have a focus. While the violence will again escalate, the comminity will be responsible for the cleaning up, which is what it wants and the US wants. After some time of this, US military protected groups can come in and help rebuild some infrastructure to allow power and water continuously as opposed to the 20% opperational capacity it now runs in urban areas. More rural areas are still under 10%.

In this case, while the forces and resources needed are greater, the resources could be better spent. Also, with the community taking a greater direct action, the role of the military would be more supportive and less direct, which would ease the nation into self-control and border awareness. I would set timetables.

In four years, 80 percent military removal
* to accomplish this:
** shifting of naval forces to cover "rogue" nations and shipping
** declaration of intentional underestimate deployment into Middle Eastern region
** re-classification of roles/tour
*** specialist -- 9-10 months singular locale, then rotate out to non-middle Eastern region for 3-2 months
**** earliest recall 6 months
**** if volunteers to redeploy after 3 months, increase in pay
*** generalist (Pvt/PVC) -- 2 week phase in, then 11 months, 2 weeks phase out
**** earliest recall in 3 months, pay increase for voluntary redeployment within 1 month
--- this increases military personnel to focus and specialize in areas
** train on and off site, police in Iraq
** police stations will be rebuilt like Saddam's buildings, penetrable only by bunker-buster bombs.
** portable gas spectrometers (successfully developed in 90s) will be in place in unmarked vehicles to inspect areas for possible weapons, starting with urban sweeps and moving outward.


** begin required multi-lingual training, in that all recruits will be introduced to other languages for projected deployment (e.g.: Farsi for Iraq, Korean for Korea, etc.)
** job placement for honorably discharged personnel

--- secondary ----

other nations will join the struggle with the US possibly poised to quickly be one of the world's largest, most efficient oil producers, who will then help "set the price" on oil. If Iraq slides and never gets back to oil production, the US will produce oil and set the price to ensure that "rogue" oil-producing nations financially die.

To secure itself, the US will have a seven year plan to print every citizen, figers and toes, and in ten years DNA.

So ... how does it end?

Phil Collins ... menegerie of 80s video concepts

To this day I still use, "So how does it end?"

Salt

At my hands-on job, I work with salt (sodium chloride, potassium, etc.). I have checked my blood pressure and it is fine, yet my pulse is running high, as of late. I smell fairly clean, but my hands -- yuck. They smell like work. I tried soaps, shampoo, windex ... all to no avail. Today, it is time to try something new.

Last night I had a burning sensation in my fingertips from the handling of the heavy-salt items. While the cold preventions bacterial growth, the salt kills even more. I think the more I handle it, the more it'll sting. I'll look for disposable gloves soon. I washed my hands repeatedly and moments later -- ouch! There is one item espcecially that is overly salted. It is not something I use in my general life outside of work.

I'm a vegetarian now ... I could not "go back" after smelling it and working with meat during the day. Granted, it's processed, then processed, then processed, but still ... stink, as is the basis of my non-meat eating ways.

MR noted another commercial

"Well", it cleans well.