An Opinion

Not to get overly political here (that's what paid columns are for) but: the US Attorney General is hit with contempt of Congress proceedings because he refuses to come clean about White House connections to a scandal involving gun-running, Mexican cartels, and the death of a U.S. Border Agent - and it doesn't even crack the top headline of most sites/papers. A) could there be any clearer proof of a media bias towards Obama, even at the cost of their own integrity? B) Obama should have canned Holder months ago and distanced himself from this mess. A clumsy, pointless mistake on the President's part.

Redshirts and Half Moon Investigations

John Scalzi's Redshirts is a science fiction novel that starts out with a fun take on the old Star Trek cliche that 'extras' on the show - often garbed in security red - were doomed to die. What if these low ranking folks began to take notes, calculate the odds, and decide things needed to change?

Unfortunately, at that point Scalzi decides to go all 'meta' and have the cast become part of a fractured universe where they are mere characters in a TV show. With no alternative, they decide to venture to 'our' world to speak with the shows creators.

I'm sure it's that last bit that some people will argue 'makes' the book, but it was the opposite for me, and from that point on I was less than enamoured with the novel.

As for the three codas, the third was moving, the second moderately so, the first a ridiculous waste of time, and the whole a needless exercise.

I grade this is a B-


Book #45 of 2012

I picked up Eoin Colfer's Half Moon Investigations because YaYa left it in the van one day and I thought it looked interesting. I was right.

It's rather like Encyclopedia Brown meets The Three Investigators meets The Bloodhound Gang, and although I'm sick of pint sized protagonist (what, no chunky or tall kid can play a hero?)  I thought it was a hoot. As the highest praise of all, may I just say that I would have tore this s**t up as a kid.

Grade: A+

Book #46 on the year

Quote

Implicit understanding is an explicit failure.

Watching the Planes

Watching airplanes at Mitchell Field

At work today more than 10% of the staff was cut for "seasonal reductions". This was not a pleasant day to work.

LuLu and Ginger's Room Re-Do pt 2

Early on Father's Day Lisa disappeared upstairs, and when I went to track her down I found her applying decals to the newly painted walls in LuLu and Ginger's room. That was bad timing on my part. They weren't sticking on the textured walls, so Lisa sent me back downstairs to find a paint brush, and to mix a water and glue solution to essentially decoupage the decals to the wall.

Guess who got stuck decoupaging? Grrr. :)

The results were pretty darn good. The decals were high quality sets produced by IKEA that my lady had bought for a $1/sealed pack at a local second hand store, but Lisa theorized that their age (six years since manufacture) had diminished the adhesion.

Oh, we also got around to replacing the closet light and buying the bolts to secure the bed rail on the bunk bed, but the bolts were the wrong size so I'm afraid I can't take much credit for that purchase.

What do you think of the work?

Funhouse Stairs No More

Today we had our back porch redone.

Oh, it needed it. Five years ago we were almost denied homeowners insurance when we bought the house because the porch was in such disrepair; a last minute band-aid repair was needed before the insurer would complete the process and clear the way for the purchase. 

By the time we were done renovating the interior, there was no money left to do the porch. Which was fine, as the repair held up. Besides, it was only a matter of time before we replaced it. And . . . then I lost Job Prior, and for a few years it continued to rot away as it was the least of our worries. 

Heck, we almost canceled LuLu's 8th birthday party because one of the stairs collapsed an hour before it began. This past winter I had to brace the stairs with scrap wood to keep them upright until spring, and . . .  then in spring our intended contractor did a vanishing act and somehow, someway, it wound up being the middle of June. 

But as of this morning the "funhouse stairs" are no more. I don't have the new porch pics to show you quite yet, as the work continues, but I'll whet your appetite with the horrific 'before' pictures. 

The 'landing' was warping and rotting.



the railings were held in with jerry-rigged solutions of spare screws and nails



The steps, as I alluded to before, were akin to walking a teeter-totter










In just as bad a shape was the bilco door (the exterior access to the basement). It had literally rotted clean through and been patched up with scrap during the quote process



I tried opening the door for a better look but the entire handle and board came off in my hand



Once it was removed today by the contractor the damage was even more apparent









Lovely ain't it?

Well, it's now in porch heaven, and by this time tomorrow I should have some pictures of the finished new porch for you.

The Year of the Comeback continues . . . 

Continuing the Obama administration's epic commitment to worrying about the inconsequential while the world collapses around us, the U.S. Patent Office ruled that the Washington Redskins nickname is "disparaging of Native Americans" and thus, its federal trademarks must be canceled.The team will probably keep the rights on appeal, so it's doubly pointless, but jiminey cricket. I'm no fan of the name, but the decision by the Patent Office is plainly a political jab and a woeful use of our federal resources.

The Glass House

watching the big brother knockoff 'The Glass House' on ABC. So far so dull, and the cast is largely doggie. I mean, real world dateable but for tv? Woof Woof. 2022 update: Not to sound woke, but this was an incredibly stupid and immature post. I wish I hadn't written it.

An Indoor Picnic

Having a picnic dinner indoors (courtesy of the 90 deg weather), with the family, Lisa's friend Nancy, my cousin Mindy and her son Isaiah. I just took the little guy for a walk. No babee can resist a piggy back ride on the shoulders of greatness. 🙂