In a few more weeks, Mars will be closer to Earth than any time in the past 50,000 years. I hope to find a suitable group to go view it with, like perhaps the astronomers at Morehead Planetarium at UNC, who always have viewing events whenever something cosmic is going on. Or maybe I’ll hang out with the Raleigh Astronomy Club as they crank their observatory towards the Red Planet.

At any rate, this is best view of Earth’s planetary neighbor that’s been available for a long time. I hope to make the most of it.

Oftentimes when I’m looking for a card for someone’s birthday or some other special occasion, I just wind up picking a card that “sucks less.” Such is the sorry state of greeting cards. Way too often, it becomes a contest of finding one passable card in a sea of mediocrity.

Cards aren’t edgy anymore. They don’t have any real humor, or the humor they show is cliched beyond belief. I think I can honestly say I enjoy visiting the dentist more than I enjoy picking out greeting cards. At least at the dentist’s, the nitrous oxide is guaranteed to get a laugh.

A place with somewhat-funny cards is a special find, so when I find one that has decent cards, I tend to mine it to the point where I become paranoid I’m gonna send the same card to the same person twice. As the stock doesn’t change much, it is a real danger. All cards begin to look the same to my glazed and jaded eyes.

How did cards get so bad? Is it that the writers are fresh out of ideas? I mean, they’ve only tried to say “I love you” 58 billion times now. Surely there are a few more ways they haven’t tried yet.

And why do these sucky cards cost more than magazines? It’s a crummy piece of paper with some not-so-witty saying on it, and for this I pay five dollars? Get real!

In frustration with the dull store-bought cards, I’ve taken to making my own cards. They’re much more personal and can sometimes actually be funny. Those are qualities you can’t find anymore in store-bought cards.

On Friday, I was under the mistaken impression that Neil Young was the man. I don’t know how that could have happened. What I really *meant* was that Johnny Cash is the man.

Sorry for any confusion. Now back to your regularly-scheduled blog.

Today is Meet The Pack Day, where the Wolfpack has autograph sessions and then an open practice at Carter-Finley Stadium.

I’m hoping we can make it out there to see the activities. I’m really pumped about N.C. State’s upcoming football season. Meet The Pack Day is a great time to take photos of the team’s stars, which is the main reason I’m interested in going. Some of these players are destined for greatness, and it may be a while before I get a chance to snap pictures of them again.

Only twenty days left before the season opener. Go Pack!

This weekend is quiet compared to the exciting day I had at work on Friday. The Oculan building is the lowest office in the office park and has the wonderful feature of being surrounded by rivers of water whenever it rains.

Well, on Friday it didn’t just rain. It flooded! We probably got hit with at least four inches of rain, possibly more. All of it was streaming into our parking lot in currents moving at least 20 miles per hour.

I remember talking to my boss about the day’s activities when looked out the window. My jaw dropped at seeing how dark it had become – it was darker than dusk outside. I raced out to my car to grab my umbrella as the first drops began to fall.

Back inside, we watched as it began to pour, bringing up the radar images on our PC’s just to keep track of things. A string of red blotches seemed to line up just south of us, ready to take turns pummeling us with water. And that’s just what they did. Before long, we noticed our parking lot becoming a small pond.

I was thinking how lucky I was not to have parked in the spot known to catch the most rain, as it was under 5 inches of water. But the rest of the lot was filling up fast, too, so I decided to try getting the water down by unclogging a storm drain that clogs regularly.

My coworker Ben was outside taking pictures of the flood. He saw me wander into the currents to work on the drain, and pitched in to help. As we began to pitch gobs of pine straw and sticks away from the drain, I felt something soft and heavy squish in my hand. Looking down in the muddy water, I watched a dark cylindrical shape get sucked into the drain. It was a black snake that had gotten stuck in the grate under the torrent of water, probably long drowned by the floodwaters by the time I had grabbed him. I decided to be more careful next time.

The flood in the parking lot soon subsided to everyone’s relief and we all went back inside. It kept raining, however, and before long I realized the flood in the parking lot was only getting transferred to the large gully next to the building. There seemed to be no stopping it once it got full.

The gully looks to hold a few swimming pools worth of water when its full, and it needed all its area on Friday. The storm drains I had cleared earlier were still clear, but they were not longer draining: they were full! There was no place left for the water to go.

We watched nervously as the water quickly rose in the gully, filling an eye-popping area in minutes. By the time I left for lunch, the water was only yards away from the building. I made it a point to move my laptop from the floor onto my desk, not knowing if my cubicle would be floating by the time I got back.

Fortunately, we avoided an office flood. The sun was out by the time we got back and the water in the gully retreated at a rate of a few inches per hour. Still, it’s no wonder why the office park is called “Water’s Edge.”

Here are a few shots (pic 1, pic 2, pic 3) of the flood, courtesy of Ben.

I was on hold during one of my phone calls today and was pleasantly surprised to hear a Neil Young song playing on the hold music.

I’m going to end my night listening to his Decade CD, perhaps playing “Cinnamon Girl” a few hundred times as I fall asleep. 🙂

I’m reminded of the picture of awe on Beck’s face as he met Neil at MTV’s Rock the Vote in 1999. Who wouldn’t be in awe of meeting the man?

More evidence that the phone line as we know it is dead. From Dan Gillmor:

Previously, I had two phone lines into my house, each costing almost $20 a month for the dial tone plus local calls. One of those lines was split to also handle digital subscriber line (DSL) broadband data access. In addition, I paid a long-distance carrier per-minute rates and a monthly connection charge.

Today I have one phone line, split into voice and DSL services. But I also have a new box attached to the network that links my phone to the Internet.

Dan’s talking about a service called Packet 8, one that charges $20/month for advanced services like these. This is more than you can get from Bellsouth for the price. Far more.
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I was checking out the website of Edmund Scientific today at lunch. This place absolutely rules! I’ve been a fan of Edmund since I was a kid – it’s always been the ultimate place for geek toys.

Check out this roller coaster kit, for example. Or this Kick Dis air-powered puck? Where else are you gonna find this stuff?

Given a fat bank account, I’d be buying these smart toys for myself, …er, I mean Hallie, so she can learn while she’s having fun. Fun for geeks of all ages!

I’ve adjusted the weblog to make previewing your comment optional. This should help get the feedback flowing here.

If you have any other things you’d like to see here, respond with a comment to this story and I’ll see what I can do.

I also added a link to Bill Maher‘s (the Politically Incorrect guy) weblog, too. He now lives in the “Net Stops” section.