I take my hat off to the incredible street crews who labored throughout the night to keep our roads open. Thanks to their Herculean efforts there wasn’t one bit of snow or ice on our city streets.
I’d especially like to thank them for going the extra mile by clearing the snow and ice from my neighborhood, yard, house, and all visible surfaces – and doing so before the sun came up. Fantastic job, guys!
What refreshing words to hear our President say: “I screwed up.” In the past eight years full of colossal screwups, I never heard that other guy ever admit he made a mistake. I am happy to hear President Obama taking responsibility for his actions. The buck finally stops at the White House desk again.
I am also happy to help Obama see the error of his ways, such as his apparently continuing the policy of kidnapping … er, rendition as my buddy Scott pointed out (fortunately it looks like the L.A. Times “got punked” in the words of Harper’s Scott Horton. Salon pointed me to some analysis of these claims by Harper’s and the Washington Monthly).
There are a few inches of snow in the overnight forecast and it brought up an amusing memory for Kelly tonight. She remarked at how simple it is nowadays to find out about weather closings.
It’s true. When we were kids and it snowed we were glued to the TV, waiting for an eternity for the name of our school system to flash on the screen. Now, it’s just a few simple clicks on the Web.
Of course, putting weather closings on the web raises some concerns, too. You know how we do.
Travis got a tadpole for Christmas, in a package called Grow a Frog. The tadpole arrived a week or two ago. We’ve kept it on our kitchen counter in its square plastic aquarium. “Tad” now has legs visible and almost ready to pop out of his body.
I swear I’ve enjoyed watching that tadpole as much as kids have. It’s fascinating to watch the astonishing transformation that takes place from a tadpole to a frog. I will never fully understand how and why a creature can go through such a phenomenal change.
During our recent car-shopping, we bought a 10-pack of Carfax reports so we could learn the history of the cars we were evaluating. We only used a few of the reports (and they expire soon), so I thought I’d use them in a novel way. I decided to plug in the VIN of our totaled van to see where it wound up.
Turns out the van was issued a salvage title on Friday. I’m not sure who got the title, though. I was thinking maybe someone is trying to repair it but I suppose a junkyard would need a title to keep it, too.
Another interesting thing is that the accident report is listed, but Carfax wanted to charge me $7 to read it. That same accident report can be viewed for free on the Raleigh Police Department website.
Google Earth has been expanded to include maps of large swaths of the ocean floor. Google’s ocean-mapping project, Google Ocean is included in version 5 of Google Earth and gives a peek at the 70% of the planet’s surface that’s underwater.
Another welcome new feature of Google Earth is the inclusion of historical imagery. This allows users to get a better feel for the context of a site. Good stuff!
I used to look down on the month of February, being a short month and all and typically cold (and sometimes messy). Lately I’ve come to appreciate it because of the dramatic change that takes place during the month. We enter February in darkness and exit it with far more daylight than we started with. It’s the month with the most dramatic increase in daylight.
Oh, and its also the month of my dad’s birthday.
It sure is nice to have some.
I’ve got the coolest wife ever. This afternoon Kelly helped me move 8 12-foot-long sheets of drywall from our garage, through two turns, and up the stairs to the attic. While it was hard work, she was right there, step by step.
I love a woman who knows her way around construction materials!
I should have known when I read the headline saying “Raleigh woman arrested in prostitute sting.” Why wasn’t that plural, as there are many areas of Raleigh where prostitution is an ongoing problem?
Then I read the article. This particular prostitute was advertising on Craigslist, and set up shop in a hotel room. In other words, she wasn’t standing on Raleigh street corners, or working out of the city’s public parks or neighborhood streets.
If you couldn’t tell I’ve got a much larger problem with one of these scenarios, and what the woman was doing ain’t it. What two consenting adults do behind doors is their business. What they do in public parks is a different story altogether. When Raleigh decides to crack down on this business I’ll be much more impressed.
