Monthly Archive for July, 2009

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Crater of Diamonds. Hmmmm, Nancy Has Birthday Soon.

Published on July 28, 2009 in Baby Boomer. 2 Comments Tags: birthday, crater of diamonds, flakes, gold, panning, state park, ulookubook.

I have my bag packed, and with a few more paid posts like this one, I’ll have enough money to get across the state lines.

I’m shopping for Holiday deals.
Since ULookUBook said they would make it worth my while, I decided to give their site a peek. You should too, although I don’t make anything off them if you book a trip.

I’ll have to see about that.

Nancy has a birthday coming this weekend, so a long weekend someplace would be fun. Maybe we should road trip to the Crater of Diamonds State Park. Let her find her own birthday present.

Talk about marketing genius: the people that came up with Crater of Diamonds State Park are brilliant (pun intended.)

What’s the first picture that pops into your mind? Craters. Full. Diamonds. Diamonds laying on the ground so plentiful that you just reach down and scoop up a handful of precious stones of all colors.

She is a whiz at finding precious metal. We spent a few hours panning for gold in Arizona and she came out with some flakes that are dazzling in their smallness.

(A larger version of this picture still makes the flakes nearly invisible, so don’t bother clicking to enlarge.)

I can only hope that the diamonds we find are at least as large as the gold flakes.

Set your expectations low and you will never be disappointed

… my Mother’s OBGYN

Geeky Animated Gif Monday

Published on July 27, 2009 in Random. 1 Comment Tags: crotch punch.

Only a geek would have to test his cup so weirdly.

21st Century Cow Tipping

Published on July 26, 2009 in Baby Boomer and Cars. 6 Comments Tags: amsterdam, canal, smart.

I sure hope they keep this little prank in Amsterdam and it doesn’t invade the U.S.

Seems “Smart tossing” is the hot new activity for buzzed out Amsterdam youth. They toss Smart cars into the nearest canal.

A similar conversation took place at Varley and Chickie’s home last evening. Bob and Felicia had taken a ride through the Kentucky version of the hood, which is a very diverse neighborhood of Mexicans, African Americans, Bosnians, Vietnamese, etc. etc.

Nancy said she would take Chickie there someday since she had never been. Bob suggested that she shouldn’t drive her Smart. “They would pick you up and carry you off.”

Laffs all around.

Smart car parked alongside Amsterdam canal.
Photo by Tinou Bao

According to locally-published newspaper De Telegraaf police has not wanted to publicize this form of vandalism for fear of copy-cat incidents. However, police officers are paying extra attention to Amsterdam’s canals, especially during the weekends.

The Smart cars are small enough to be parked with head or tail pointing to the water.

One man who parked his Smart car that way said police woken him with the message that his car had been pushed into the canal.

“Several weeks ago the same thing happened to my companion’s Smart,” Casper de Jong said. “In both cases the Smart was declared a total-loss.”

Alongside most canals a low guard rail helps prevent cars from taking a dip, but the Smart car is small enough to be lifted and tossed.

It is not clear how many Smart cars have been vandalized this way, but an employee of Smart Center Amsterdam confirmed the company has recently been confronted with it ‘a number of times.’

Shouldn’t be a problem here in Podunkyville:

no canals
car is tucked away in garage by 9 p.m.

President Obama Apologizes, is a Class Act.

Published on July 24, 2009 in Politics. 0 Comments Tags: apology, boston cop, gates, obama, stupidly.

Even though I agree that the cops in Boston acted “stupidly,” I don’t know all the facts.

I think all parties acted stupidly.

BUT: Obama apologized. The cop didn’t, yet. I hope he does. And I hope Gates does too.

And then, as President Obama said, this can be a “teachable moment.”

And then he invited everybody involved to have a beer.

Class.

President Obama today backpedaled from his comment that the Massachusetts police who arrested Henry Louis Gates Jr. “acted stupidly,” the New York Times reports. In an unannounced appearance at the daily White House briefing, Obama said he “could have calibrated” his words more carefully in speaking on the incident, adding that he’d expressed his regrets in a call to Sgt. James Crowley earlier today. The call ended with the suggestion that he, Crowley and Gates, a renowned black scholar, grab a beer sometime at the White House, the president said. Obama said the arrest and surrounding media frenzy had pulled attention away from health reform, but that he hoped the case can be looked at as a “teachable moment” for improving relations between police and minorities.

U.S. Internet Connectivity is Pathetic

Published on July 23, 2009 in Entertainment, kentucky, Money, Politics, Research and Technology. 0 Comments Tags: hazard, high speed, internet, kentucky, pikeville, speed test.

I just ran a speed test on how well I am connected to the internet.

Better than my cousin-sister in Hazard, KY, and better than my daddy-uncle in Pikeville, KY, but 1/2 the speed of my friend Elin Woods, in Sweden, and 1/12 the speed of my long-lost friend Danny Choo in Japan.

Right now the government is deciding the future of the Internet in the United States.

The Federal Communications Commission is crafting our national high speed internet strategy, which will determine how fast the Internet is and who has access to high speed connections.

Help shape this policy in just two minutes.

Take this Speed Test, and help update data and help make universal broadband a reality.

Take the Speed Test now:

http://www.speedmatters.org/speedtest2009

Then fill in the form to send a letter to your feral (no typo – little or no contact with real people) representatives. I personalized my letter because Speedmatters.org was just too nice in their letter.

The United States ranks just 15th among industrialized nations in broadband access — and this is costing our economy billions of dollars every year.

Every day, American businesses are missing out on opportunities to sell their goods and services in the global marketplace. Every day, the American people are missing out on important health and educational benefits. And every day, the American economy is missing out on good jobs created by high speed internet access.

That’s because the U.S. has historically invested relatively less on telecommunications than most other major countries. Consumers are charged more for slower speeds, and our current high-speed networks don’t even reach millions of American households.

Like Bubba-Louise, my cousin-sister in Hazard can’t even watch Keyboard Cat, because it won’t download.
H/she needs to see this stuff: