Long Labor day weekend

Where to begin? Friday night we saw MikeMickXer play at Seaboard Music, keeping the kids up way too late. Saturday we paid the price with two grumpy, squabbling kids. I got some time with Hallie downtown at the Raleigh Times coffee shop but Hallie got bored when I ran into a friend.

Sunday we split up and I took Travis to New Hope Valley while Kelly and Hallie had some time together. T and I didn’t get to ride the train but we did have fun looking around at stuff. Later, I got some things done around the house, finally hanging things on walls in every bedroom. Travis and I also fixed the screen in our screen door and put a wire cable on it to keep it from sagging. In between we spent a little time playing on the driveway and visiting with our neighbors. I spent time shooting baskets during the talking, and especially enjoyed handing the basketball to our two-year-old neighbor, Noah, who seems obsessed with it.
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Van Jones

You know, I’m sure there’s more to this story than is being told about White House “green jobs” official Van Jones “resigning” supposedly due to a petition he signed and because he called Republicans a bad name.

So Jones doubts the official story of what happened during the attacks of September 11th. Big deal! There are so many holes in the official 9/11 story that it’s not even funny. Jones is not alone in his doubt and that’s certainly no reason to can him.

As for the Republican remark, wasn’t it Dick Cheney who, while on that bastion of civility and decorum – the Senate Floor, told Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Lehey to go f*ck himself? I didn’t see ol’ Darth Cheney turning in his walking papers after that.

Either there’s more to Jones’s forced resignation than we’re being told or Obama threw him under the bus as a gift to the rabid right-wing talk show hosts. Neither scenario sits well with me.

There Will Be Blood

I saw the Daniel Day-Lewis movie There Will Be Blood (based on the Upton Sinclair novel Oil!) last night and it did not disappoint. Day-Lewis once again slipped completely into his role, getting into the skin of conniving oilman Daniel Plainview.

While it’s always fun to watch Day-Lewis act, Dillon Freasier, the actor playing Plainview’s son H.W., was fantastic! Put the wrong kid into this role and the whole movie falls apart. Freasier was completely believable from start to finish. No wonder Day-Lewis wanted to share his Oscar with him.

It’s not always an easy movie to watch but I happen to like films that challenge. Put it on your Netflix list if you haven’t yet seen it.

Freeing up time the wrong way

I’ve been tinkering with Event Calendar 3, a great WordPress iCalendar server plugin so I can easily serve up important community events to my neighbors. Part of this is testing it with various calendar clients like Exchange. Since I don’t have Windows running anywhere in the house, I thought I’d try the next best thing: Kelly’s Mac with Microsoft Entourage 2004 installed.

Entourage suffers from Microsoft’s peculiar habit of putting all its eggs in one basket. All Kelly’s email, events, tasks, and contacts live in one big file called (wait for it!) “Database.” If anything happens to that one file, you’re screwed. Back to that in a moment.
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MV Arctic Sea

Remember the Russian cargo ship MV Arctic Sea that allegedly disappeared after being hijacked? Experts familiar with piracy say the ship’s ordeal was anything but a typical piracy, as the ship officially carried a load of timber worth a mere $1.8 million. It was also allegedly hijacked in a busy European shipping lane where piracy is extremely rare.

A Russian journalist who was among the first to discount the official story has been told in a mysterious phone call to flee the country or be arrested: advice which he successfully took. This fuels further speculation that the MV Arctic Sea was carrying more than the load of timber that was officially reported.

Some think the ship was carrying unsanctioned cruise missiles and anti-aircraft units bound for Iran. Other speculation suggests that the Israeli Mossad or top officials in Russia found out about the smuggling operation and initiated the “hijacking” to intercept the shipment. The alleged arms shipment, some say, may have been put together by high Russian officials acting outside of the law, a “weapons mafia” as one Russian general termed it.

What is clear is that many media reports about the ship’s disappearance were deliberate falsehoods designed to disguise the real activity surrounding the ship. I suppose it will be a long time, if ever, that the public learns the truth about this mysterious incident.

Broughton traffic

I know school just started and I’m hoping things settle down, but in the past two weeks it’s proven difficult to get past the St. Mary’s intersection of Wade Avenue due to the traffic going to Broughton High School. I don’t remember traffic being this bad back in the spring.

Again, it’s early in the school year but so far getting around Broughton sucks.

Taste of Fall

This morning began a bit crisper than we’re used to here. The first day of September brought some decidedly fall-like weather. Today should be sunny with a high temperature in the mid-70s. This is about 10 degrees cooler than we’ve had for the past few weeks.

Bring it on, I say.