Steve “Croc Hunter” Irwin Dead

Death finally caught up to Steve Irwin, who died today in a freak accident. Known worldwide as “The Crocodile Hunter,” Irwin was snorkeling off the north coast of Australia when he accidentally cornered a stingray. The ray threw up its tail in defense, driving its barb into Irwin’s chest.

Annoying as he may have sometimes been (though not as annoying as Paul Hogan’s “Crocodile Dundee” character), Irwin became an unofficial ambassador for Australia as well as a huge proponent of conservation. People around the world knew his “crikey” catchphrase. The guy danced with death so many times and walked away from it that its ironic he’d be done in while he was totally behaving himself. One thing you can say: he went out doing just what he wanted to do.

Next time I’m lucky enough to visit Australia, I’ll say a little “crikey” in his honor. That, and I’ll look very carefully for stingrays.

(hat tip, Margarita Lounge)

Free Energy!

I was poking around the Internets today looking for marine products to blow money on when I came across this Solar Panel Kit at Harbor Freight Tools. Two hundred bucks gets you 3 15-watt solar panels and a power center to charge batteries. You add a deep-cycle battery or two and an inverter and you’ve got yourself a nice little solar power station.

As a geeky kid in the early 80’s I had a fold-up solar panel that would power a transistor radio (transistors, remember those?). I always thought solar panels were interesting to have around for projects. As a grown-up geek, I can imagine some cool uses for 45-watt panels.

Ernesto? Not Impressed-o.

Tropical Storm Ernesto passed through just east of the Triangle early this morning, hugging the eastern side of I-95 as it passes into Virginia. Winds near the center are sustained at 60 MPH, but here there is much, much less wind. The weather station’s wind gauge measured a gust of 20 MPH at 3:45 AM this morning. The gust must have been higher since the gauge is too close to the house for me to trust it. I’d say the breeze is well over what I’d be comfortable sailing in but not strong enough to be worried about falling trees.

The rain so far has been a bust, too. Yesterday got half an inch. Since midnight today we’ve had half an inch. We got more rain with the preceding cold front days ago when it dropped 2.24 inches in a day.

Still, I won’t complain about the rain. I’d been watching my lawn and trees wilt from the drought we’d slipped back into. A good, solid rain spread out over 4-5 days seems to be just what we needed here.

First Mate, Indeed

Do you want to know about one of the many things I love about my wife? Do you know what she did after she read my blog post about the minivan getting a bit low in the water the other day? Rather than say, “well, that’s it. We’re selling the boat,” she went online to go truck shopping! A woman who’ll choose a vehicle just to tow a boat is my kind of woman. Woohoo!

What’s funny is that we were amused when our neighbors bought a truck for their boat. Now is seems strangely normal.

It remains to be seen whether we’ll actually get a truck, though. If we get one big enough to pull the boat (and a mobile home, bus, elephant, and whatever we want to haul), I can’t bring myself to run it on anything other than biodiesel. On the other hand, the import trucks have better fuel economy for gas engines but may not be big enough to make much of a difference at the boat ramp.

Decisions, decisions…

Is The Storm Causing Spam Shortage?

Another thing that’s eerily quiet is my email inbox. I normally have beaucoup spams in my inbox this time of day, sent overnight from places unknown. This morning I didn’t have one spam email waiting for me. Not one.

Could South Florida be the undisputed home of the world’s spammers? It wouldn’t surprise me in the least. Maybe an evacuation every now and then would be a good thing.

The Calm Before The Storm?

It was eerily quiet outside the house last night. The funny thing is, I don’t really know what I was hoping to hear. Whatever it was, I didn’t hear it. And I’m a bit troubled by it.

I think it has something to do with Tropical Storm Ernesto headed our way. Maybe the animals and insects outside are hunkering down, naturally more aware of the upcoming weather than we “modernized” humans. While I’m not concerned about the tropical storm, I think the critters outside know something is on the way.

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Training The Masses

I’ve been incommunicado today, giving advanced training on our wonderful product to our other sales engineers. I’m flying without a net, just letting the attendees tell me what they want to learn. I’m having a blast doing it, too. It’s so refreshing to teach something new rather than the same old “introducing our product” spiel. And these guys are smart so I don’t have to belabor the small stuff. They can figure it out.

I’m getting an early start on training tomorrow in an effort to get these guys out of here before Tropical Storm Ernesto pays us a visit Thursday. Sure, the winds will be piddily by the time it gets here but there will still be the threat of flooding and tornadoes. In a way it reminds me of the first training I did when started at $LAST_COMPANY. It was held in the fall of 2003 when the last tropical storm came through Raleigh. We were in the Clarion Hotel in downtown Raleigh: the big round hotel on Hillsborough Street. I’ll never forget the feeling of standing on that balcony and hearing the wind howl through that cylindrical building.

Oh, and another thing. I took the guys back to the hotel after dinner and pulled up right behind a satellite truck for the The Weather Channel. You know if you see these guys show up you’re in for some wild weather!

WTC Attacks Not Listed On Bin Laden’s FBI Poster

Today’s Washington Post notices today what I noticed last week: Osama Bin Laden isn’t wanted by the FBI for the attacks of 9/11. Nowhere on his most wanted poster does it mention the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Pentagon or the World Trade Center.

The article says its because Bin Laden’s never been charged with the attacks. In a way I’m glad to see the FBI is going by the book on this one, and only listing crimes for which a suspect has been indicted.

Rule of law. What an amazing concept. If only the rest of the gummint held this standard.