Roots

We are sailing at 37,000 feet, 600 miles per hour; we are an hour and 38 minutes, or 1210 miles, away from landing at JFK airport in NYC. And this, about 50 miles away, is as close as I'm going to get to my old home of Madison WI on this trip.

Marauder

Arrgh, sometimes a pirate has to go marauding. It gives new meaning and purpose in life. For example: I swear by the higgs-bosons visible in the infinite blackness of black beards beard that if I ever reach the "X" marked on Marty McFly's treasure map. I'm going back in time with his silver gull winged ship and I'm going to beat the small berrys off of the scurvey dog who thought putting gun powder in the heel of his boot was a good idea. Piratical footwear is neither easy nor pleasant to remove.

Ahoy there mates!

Thar be seceret pirate ways of finding out how your mates are doing. Piratical networking is very important. If you plan on living to a ripe old age; like 29... you have to keep a weather eye out for corsairs corsairs: I've got mates!
((The average age of pirates in the eighteenth century was 27))

Gretchen and I watched Pi this evening. It was my second time. I did find it a bit eerie the first time through; although now it just seems ridiculous.

Flying High

Arrgh, I usually only get as high as the Crows Nest. I'm somewhat ashamed that my aspirations seem to be less than that of a wee bat; who decided to go to outer space. Although it is nice to know that even the most expensive ship ever created still has problems with stowaways. (Also very funny slashdot comments...)

Papers not just for rolling cigaretts with.

Being a somewhat educated scallywag, I neither smoke, nor do I, usualy, burn librarys. However we have been out to sea for quite a few weeks now without naught for entertainment, and I wouldn't mind a few new books. So if you are feeling generous buy me this: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep or this: Neuromancer

Avast! Phart Fan's!

When patching up the ceiling from where me brigantine had sprung a leak earlier this year, I found that the the bathroom fan was completely buried in insulation and wasn't actually vented to the outside, or anywhere for that matter. So we have been blowing hot moist air into mulched paper insulation. I really can't think of a better way to grow mould, but I don't know much about that...

So I bought two new fans, might as well add one downstairs while I'm at it, and have begun to install them. However this brings me face to face with the wiring in my house. ;( There are no ground wires, but that's not the worst part: I have a main panel from ~1960, and two sub panels; I have been unable to locate any sort of a main breaker anywhere!

Lest this small project spiral out of control, I will for the moment resign myself to only replacing wires that are convenient to replace (and in so doing adding a equipment bonding/grounding conductor); and as soon as possible I will add in a main breaker or fused disconnect or something...

So I guess I'll be gobbling me grub after work while thar' be more work to do in the crows nest.
Parting shot: Flow

Break out the buckets! Bail for your lives!

We were running full sails to the Cove-Moot when we sprung a leak. Before the boatsman could yell, "Avast!" we were already sinking to a watery grave. With the blessing of the sea gods a strong wind blew up and we were able to land on a western (digital) island of a friendly sort. There is no way however for us to salvage and repair in time for the Cove-Moot. I gave the crew double rations of Grog to help keep there spirits up. On the New(Egg) horizon this morning Visa two eyes spotted a ship approaching, when they get close enough we will pillage what we need from them.


(My hard drive started acting funny Friday night at like 10:00pm,
giving me less than 12 hours to figure out what was going on and get to the LAN party. Almost needless to say the drive was collapsing upon itself, I managed to save 99% of my stuff for which I am very thankful. But dang! I wanted to go to the LAN party, instead I spent 48 hours in my basement running diagnostics, and tearing apart old computers for spare parts. I temporarily installed Ubuntu, and actually it's pretty nice, I like the new version. I still expect to go back to a source based GNU/Linux install eventually, but not at least until I get a new hard drive.)